


If the World was Against Me, Would You Still Stand By Me?

by WhoknewZeus



Series: Thominho Superpowers Stuff [1]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Action, Adventure, Angst, Drama, Fantasy, I made up a bunch of other characters too, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Some Fluff, Suspense, but it came out too long for people to read that aren't as crazy of a reader as I am, it was going to be one-shot, long story, lots of powers, multi-chaptered, so much powers, some smut, this story will be extra long as hell, y'all motherfuckers should know what you are doing if you decide to put yourself through this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoknewZeus/pseuds/WhoknewZeus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minho wasn’t sure when it started out for him. He knew that the world happened to be the way it was today — full of regular average joes, rich folks, poor citizens, and homeless people. Did Minho also mention the group of people that also walked around with supernatural powers? Because it was certainly a part of society.</p><p> In the society Minho lived in, people with extraordinary powers were discovered after these same people were hit by the rays of a lunar eclipse. It took government officials about ten years before they uncovered the secret that there were people around the world beginning to produce impossible results. Thus, the government began the program W.I.C.K.E.D., which stood for World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. World in Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> So this should probably come out to let y'all know that this story will be updated weekly or whenever I feel like I can't wait for y'all to read this big shit.

Minho wasn’t sure when it started out for him. He knew that the world happened to be the way it was today — full of regular average joes, rich folks, poor citizens, and homeless people. Did Minho also mention the group of people that also walked around with supernatural powers? Because it was certainly a part of society.

 

In the society Minho lived in, people with extraordinary powers were discovered after these same people were hit by the rays of a lunar eclipse. It took government officials about ten years before they uncovered the secret that there were people around the world beginning to produce impossible results. Thus, the government began the program W.I.C.K.E.D., which stood for World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department.

 

The purpose of W.I.C.K.E.D was to protect the people that were not affected by the lunar eclipes’ rays from the people that were affected by it. The scientists all over the world did not figure out how the moon began to shine down and transform people into walking mutant messes or why it only affected a certain amount of people that saw the light shine on it.

 

Scientist began to give the name _Immune_ to the people that were obviously immune to the rays. However, the names for those that were directly changed by the lunar eclipes were not given an official name because the board of National Security could not vote wholesomely on one. The name for these kind of people were left to the public to decide — mutant, abnormal, strange, or whatever.

 

Minho had another idea of what to call them.

 

Minho liked to refer to himself  and other people like him as _runners_. The reason being that these type of people were horrified of what they were and what they were to most people that they would end up running away or go off into hiding from society to find a sort of peace. Either way, they were all running away from a predicament instead of facing it.

 

It also happened that Minho was one of those people that saw the pure blood-red light before it shot at his chest and the energy was being absorbed into his cells all over his body — inside and out. Minho was unsure of what had had happened and was scared of the consequence of being one of the damned because the government paid good money to those that could peacefully turn over someone with these powers.

 

The problem was that not many people were brave enough to face someone with these natural powers. Nonetheless turn them in ‘peacefully.’ The reason the government, at least in the US, made the rule to come out as if the rule was a voluntary thing for people to turn in runners without force was because people and runners were protesting all over in different states about the cruelty towards the runners. Almost millions worldwide would sign petitions to treat the runners as if they were still human.

 

Runners usually had the strongest support from mothers that had their kids turned into a monster. The same mothers felt empathetic towards their children that felt as if they didn’t belong in the same world, and these mothers vowed to protect their children and other runners, so to say.

 

Minho scoffed because the problem to the runners were not the government nor the people that discriminated against runners; the most dangerous threats to the existence of runners were themselves and _other_ runners.

 

Runners usually die off due to not being able to control their powers. The news would talk about the little boy that burned down the house and himself, or the old lady that caused herself to fall into abyss that people believed was almost the center of the earth. It was almost countless international headlines about runners that had the same tragic fate of being unable to control their powers and thus killing themselves.

 

Even if new runners were given rebirth at least every year globally, it did not mean the population was exponentially growing. Runners population was almost a total of five percent of the global population.

 

It wasn't much, honestly.

 

Over the years, runners were able to steadily give themselves a peace in the world. Most runners were able to build communities and support groups for themselves and others alike. They made sanctuaries to protect and educate the new runners. It was also discovered that runners could still reproduce, but the children of runners oddly did not obtain the same powers that their parents did… or at least if the couple was one runner and one immune.

 

Only couples that were pure runners were capable of giving their kids the inherited powers of the both of them. It was an odd gene pool to Minho that he did not feel like giving himself a headache to contemplate about, but runners were almost as if they were not human despite still holding all human characteristics and traits.

 

The thing in Minho’s society was that WCKED globally was able to get a gracious and outstanding funding from nations all over the world to build a technological force field that would identify who were runners in the area. Minho was awed that people globally could create advance technological when they felt the entire world was at a possible edge of endangerment.

 

A force field device would be implemented into each city all over the world to be able to help the people know the total of runners in the area. The device would be hidden from society and heavily guarded at the same time, so any sabotaging would be prevented. It took a grand total of five years for the world to be able to set up the device globally.

 

Once it was set, people were able to use their phones and other mobile devices to search up a website that would take their location and submit an indication of the total of runners in their city area. People could also use their TV remote to tune into a special network to check the numbers from there.

 

The numbers of runners were strictly numbers and never gave off _who_ was a runner due to privacy invasion. It also gave statistics on numbers of immunes. It was a good way for the community in each city to know the runner population in their area because they did not want to completely live in fear of how many people were capable of destroying them.

 

Minho despised that. He would always check the total in his city and dread over his phone screen to know that the number on it would mean that he was also part of that number. He felt imprisoned despite being free to roam and act normal. He couldn’t exactly be normal like almost everyone else in his city.

 

He was back to being an outsider as if he was back to his high school years where he did not have any friends to start off with.

 

In his city of Glade, there was only a whopping number of twenty runners. He also discovered through the news that ‘monsters,’ which would be his kind, were capable of something disturbing. W.I.C.K.E.D. having done tests and experimentations of runners that actually were turned in by other people or themselves had a nasty hidden trait.

 

Minho remembered the voice an annoying person in a W.I.C.K.E.D. uniform along with shaggy brown hair had said, “When one affected person enters a state of strong negative abilities, his or her powers also grow in high intensity that it goes out of his or her hands. Thus, the endangerment of the community is increased to a code red.”

 

He knew the name of that speaker and wanted to despise them, for their name was none other than Stephen Thomas. The scientist would often go as Thomas instead because the young man hated the name Stephen.

 

That same man also quitted working for W.I.C.K.E.D. a year after Minho had obtained his powers. Thomas was actually the same age as Minho, which shocked the young Asain because Thomas achieved tenfold the amount of things in 25 years that what he could do in that time. Thomas had decided to quit for his own reasons that were unknown to the world. However, his studies and research for W.I.C.K.E.D. would not go to waste.

 

It was not that scary at first for Minho when he had gotten his powers because Minho was swinging at the park past 7:30pm. It was actually 7:47pm on September 27 of 2015 to be exact. It was not like Minho kept track of it or anything.

 

Anyway, the reason Minho would remember Thomas distinctly, not because of the amount of times Thomas would appear on public TV to discuss the status of runners, but because Thomas was _living_ with him.

 

Well, if Minho was being honest with himself, the Asian fellow was _dating_ Thomas the same year after Thomas’s resignation from W.I.C.K.E.D. It was a strange way how they started off because Thomas was walking with bags of grocery filling his grip before Minho crashed into Thomas at a turn on the sidewalk because Minho was jogging in his neighborhood.

 

And that was how they met and shared a laugh over the rolling potatoes down the street. Minho apologized almost countless before recognizing the face of the other male, but Thomas declined all of it and even said, “It’s okay. You made me laugh about the runaway potatoes, so you can slide out of this one.”

 

It was a weird decision to ask for Thomas’s number to meet up on a free lunch on the Asian male, but Thomas agreed nonetheless. From that point on, they started off as friends and worked themselves up to become lovers. Minho opposed Thomas in labelling since Minho preferred his sexuality to be somewhat mysterious as Frank Ocean’s next album while Thomas liked everything to be placed in a specific label — Thomas was gay as the contestants on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

 

Then again, Thomas and Minho were not the stereotypical gays with the brighter-than-the-sun shirts and tighter-than-a-vagina pants. It was not like that stereotypical type of gays were looked down upon or anything, for it was simply not who Minho and Thomas were as individuals. Minho happened to like leather jackets, khaki skinny jeans or joggers while Thomas was into plain t-shirts in multiple colors and beige skinny jeans. Their styles would mix and match with each other on certain days, though.

 

They obviously liked to try other styles too. Thomas was wearing a school uniform along with Minho at a clothing store they were shopping at. Minho examined his boyfriend up and down before he commented, “You look like kid.”

 

Thomas was taken aback. “Kid? We’re the same age!”

 

Although that did little to change that Thomas did like the way Minho looked in the white button-up and black school pants. “No fair you get to look hot.”

 

“Slim it, shuck-face,” Minho pulled Thomas by the hips where the brunet could clearly stare at himself in the mirror they were using to look at themselves. “I love you.”

 

Heart pumping much faster, Thomas knew it had to be the soft words with heavy meaning. “Good that.”

 

It absolutely took his heart that Minho could be overtly affection.

 

***

 

One time after Minho came home from a good jog and saw Thomas eyeing impatiently at the TV screen. As Minho closed the door, he spoke, “I’m back.”

 

“Welcome home, dear!” Thomas jumped from the couch and headed to the front door where Minho was. “With the connections I still have with W.I.C.K.E.D., I was able to give an official name to the people that were affected by the strange rays from the lunar eclipse!”

 

The Asian stared at the TV screen and read the statistics on the… “They’re called runners now,” Minho unbelievably muttered.

 

“Yeah! I really enjoyed the way you were so authoritative of the term you gave these people, runners I mean, and I thought it would be a perfect official name,” Thomas excitedly rambled.

 

Minho shrugged at the sudden change, but he smiled regardless and kissed at Thomas slowly with tongue and saliva. “Thank you. I appreciate what you do for me.”

 

Thomas nodded and left Minho’s side to go back to the couch. He laid down all spread out, then Thomas patted in front of him a vacant spot to relax on. “It’s reserved for you.”

 

“Disgusting. What a shuck.”

 

“Use real English,” Thomas laughed over the slang that Minho had developed as a kid. Minho came right over without a doubt and allowed his hair to be caressed by Thomas’s lanky and soft hands.

 

They cuddled up as the TV gave reports of the new name to all of the elemental-users.

 

***

 

Thomas, being an ex-researcher and spokesmen for W.I.C.K.E.D., was able to educate Minho on a lot of staggering topics on the runners.

 

One morning, Minho picked out strawberries that were stored in the fridge as they ate breakfast together. “And you’re telling me that runners are misinformed like how people think chameleons changes color to match their background to hide from predators?”

 

“Well, yeah,” Thomas started off, picking idly at his cereal with his spoon. “The reason chameleons changes color is to reflect their mood. It is not to hide themselves and whatnot.”

 

Minho sat across the dining table in their kitchen as he would throw in the whole strawberry into his mouth. Thomas would complain to the Asian that it was strange that he did that a lot with the strawberries. _Who seriously eats the grassy part of a strawberry?_ Thomas questioned in his head. 

 

Thomas was very talkative when it came to runners, and the Asian male would sometimes think that the brunet was almost obsessed with runners.

 

“Runners’ level of power is based off of emotional stress primarily. It is the fundamental reason why most runners don’t survive at first because they’re emotionally distraught and cannot clearly control themselves. Let alone acknowledge that they became a runner in the first place.” Thomas proudly stated, knowing that there had to be cruel experimentation to achieve that answer. “Runners in that state inevitably die.”

 

“Gee, Mr. Thomas, brighten up your asshole so it can shoot rainbows next time,” Minho mocked. The air flowed around his finger and, with a single swipe, the grassy top of the strawberry in his hand that he was going to devour was sliced clean off.

 

“It must be awesome to use the air like that, huh?” Thomas stared in amazement. The clanking of his spoon against the porcelain bowl made it obvious he was done with his breakfast.

 

“I guess it has its advantages,” Minho smirked, swirling his index finger around.

 

The air in the room began to shift, and Thomas’ chair began to drag on the wood tiling before he stopped next to Minho’s chair. It was little simple uses of that power that brought Thomas so much joy because it showed how controlled someone could be with his or her powers if he or she was comfortable enough.

 

Thomas got up from his chair to sit on a new location, which was Minho’s lap. It was too sweet with the new kiss they shared, but it was not like he minded tasting strawberries. Thomas was too into Minho to give himself a reason to not smack lip-to-lip with that fine male.

 

“I got a nice game, Tommy,” Minho cooed, grabbing a strawberry from the container on the table behind Thomas. Gently placing the red fruit in front of them both, Minho explained, “First one to the center of this strawberry gets to top today.”

 

“Oh, hell yeah," Thomas was about to sink his teeth into the fruit in front him, but the air would not let him. "I swear to god, Minho. Stop cheating with your powers."

 

Minho giggled, then devoured the strawberry without remorse. Thomas looked disappointed, but a new strawberry was floating nearby. It was able to sneak into Thomas's mouth, and Minho was off to eating the next strawberry between his boyfriend's teeth.

 

Thomas _really_ liked the advantages runner powers brought.


	2. The Grim Reaper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so the new update period will be every 3 days now bc a certain someone~ Anyways, enjoy and do as you please w/ this story.

Minho was an elemental user of air. After getting hit by the ray from the lunar eclipse, he was fine that night until he noticed the wind swirling to the way he wanted it to. He did not freak out like most people and knew he was going to be isolated to society by that time, but Minho did not mind at all.

 

The noir would rather stay true to himself instead of trying to hide from the world. It was always him versus the world, anyway. The powers did little to nothing to change that fact.

 

However, Minho understood that the powers of air was a very strong element because it was ubiquitous around the world. He could literally destroy a good amount of the world if he ever desired or began to lose his humanity. Additionally, people that obtained these supernatural powers usually chose one of two choices—run or become the world’s enemy.

 

But it was inevitably true.

 

Some runners would end up deflecting from the human race to destroy it, but they were easily contained by W.I.C.K.E.D., who created a task force specifically to take care of the troublesome runners. People that were also runners except that they were a fully-trained special elite of runners. They would receive a new name to the world, as Minho remembered Thomas flaunting about it one afternoon, _Grievers_.

 

Funny thing about those grievers, though. Minho actually encountered one in action in their city. A runner got out of control and a griever was sent to contain the subject. Minho was out for another jog when he was at the park where the scene had taken place.

 

Minho remembered the face of a scared little Korean girl at the park. She had tears rolling down her cheeks onto her cute floral dress. He assumed since she liked flowers, her powers would be a magnificent experience for her to grow flowers faster instead of having to wait for the vegetation to take up resources to make itself developed.

 

The flowers the Korean girl made were in giant sizes. Lines of unknown species of plants making itself sprout out of the ground before it started to spew poisonous gas into the area. The girl cried as it was not what she wanted, but she could not make them stop trying to hurt everyone. In the palm of her shaky hands was a flower—a gladiolus.

 

A lady in a white uniform that belonged to W.I.C.K.E.D. along with the specific number and letter on the back of it. The griever was sent to deal with the opposing threat, and it was almost merciless how the brown-skinned lady walked into the scene with nonchalance. Minho had an amazing memory to easily call out the ID of the griever. “W.I.C.K.E.D. Elite Task Force: G0050.”

 

The woman flipped her black silky hair, pointed her finger at the little girl, and immediately zapped her with an electrical force. A small hint of smoke was left behind, but the little girl was still fine. It was a little too harsh in Minho’s opinion, but these grievers had no remorse in their actions because they were trained to combat any threat to human society.

 

The fight was over like that. The shock only paralyzed the little girl, so the griever could destroy all the plants and clear the area of the poison before she took the little girl back to W.I.C.K.E.D. with no opposition from the crowd that was formed around the scene. A lot people actually thanked the organization to be a greater good to society, but Minho was unsure of what the organization was up to.

 

Especially when their name was literally the same word as wicked.

 

An organization named W.I.C.K.E.D. could not possibly be up to a lot of good, but Minho did not want to overthink the situation at the moment. He remembered leaving the scene afterwards.

 

***

 

Minho woke up and saw that Thomas was not beside his side. The brunet must had something to do that was important, so Minho did not worry too much. A year of dating someone should be adequate time to build a good foundation of trust.

 

The black-haired Asian rubbed and scratched his messy hair before checking his phone on the drawer next to the bed. Sliding his finger on the glass surface, the phone clicked and opened for Minho. He noticed a text from Thomas. Reading the message aloud, Minho smiled at the simple words, “I’ll be back soon. I had a meeting with WCKED to attend. They wanted to review something with me. Anyways, there’s breakfast I cooked waiting on the kitchen table for you.”

 

 _Thomas is so adorable_ , Minho thought to himself. He got up and stretched himself in his plaid boxers and tank-top. Sunlight blessing the gorgeous medallion-colored skin. He enjoyed being himself as an essential reminder to love himself as well. Prepping his body for the long day, he did a small morning exercise on the bedroom floor.

 

In the living room, the TV was left on and the WICKED channel was already tuned it. Thomas must had obviously been watching it. As Minho walked in, he decided to look over at the numbers to see out of curiosity.

 

“That can’t be right,” Minho remarked, noticing something strange with the new numbers on the screen. He sat on their white love couch, settled his chin on the palms of his hands and his elbows on his thighs. The channel provided statistics in real-time, so it had to be very accurate. However, the numbers indicated the number of grievers in the Glade area was four while the number of runners were fifteen. The population of runners dropped by five since the last time.

 

Strange…

 

Minho continued on with his day as the news played in the background. The Asian male tried to cook something for lunch in case if Thomas was going to surprise him by being home. Letting the noodles boil and cook in the pan filled with water, he thought he could not go wrong with it. Moist steam smacking him in his face, he liked the temperature it was set. While Minho was attempting at pad thai, he heard the newscaster say, “Glade city: runner murder case. More after these messages from our sponsors.”

 

Minho’s curiosity began to hit him again as fast as a bullet train in Japan. As his noodles were being cooked in the big iron pan, he began to search up online about the Glade murder case through his phone. He read different online news articles about the murder of five runners in the area.

 

Minho saw a video attached to one article that was posted on the Huffington Post. “Leslie Hugh was found impaled in the chest as her boyfriend John Moore, who was also a runner, was found dead with numerous crushed bones within his body.”

 

Those were too gruesome to be committed by a griever as their job was to contain runners and not inflict death upon them. Putting a hand over his mouth, Minho was speechless at what he was hearing.

 

The reporter in the video continued on, “Ash Padilla was also at the scene of the crime with numerous bruises found around his chest. It seemed his neck was snapped, which must have been the cause of death.”

 

“Disgusting,” Minho said, disturbed by the treatment.

 

The reporter stood in front of the camera with a serious face and tone to match, “The other two runners, Ashley Piper and Eta Locohc, were found not on the scene of the crime but a mile apart from it. It almost seemed as if they were trying to run away before the time of their death. Ashley had the power of growing wings out of her back, but it seemed that someone stabbed holes throughout her wings before ripping them completely off.”

 

Due to how fresh the case was, the internet was unable to provide Minho photos of the people in the murder case. It absolutely sickened him that someone was capable of doing that to another human being, though. It was more than despicable, more like it was plain evil and morbid.

 

Losing his appetite, Minho hurriedly cooked the pad thai and put the food into a tupperware and stored it in the fridge. He had to go to work to talk to somebody about the case, for Minho made a living of being active and fit around his neighborhood on his free time while he was actually working as a private investigator.

 

The police department trusted Minho because they would get a runner as a part of their workforce. It would bring a better reputation for the police department in Glade city instead of having the grievers take all the credit for protecting the city.

 

The police department had turmoil with the WICKED organization. Too many losses to the funding of the police department would cause the world to no longer need their neighborhood police stations to protect the citizens. The grievers would immediately take their jobs with a snap of a finger.

 

Minho decided to drop by the office to check up on the status of the case because it piqued him to have something happen in their own city. After choosing something else appropriate to wear besides plaid boxers and a tank-top, Minho grabbed his car keys and began to drive to the Glade’s Police Department station.

 

***

 

The receptionist was Gally, and he had a particular knack to piss off Minho whenever the Asian decided to come by the office. “Hey, Min-Hoe, how was your day?”

 

“Slim it, Gally. Lemme talk to Newt,” Minho nonchalantly retorted.

 

“Gotcha,” Gally began pressing in numbers and made a call on a phone to Newt’s office to mention that Newt had a ‘visitor’ waiting to see him.

 

Minho tipped his head in appreciation at Gally, and it was shocking to know that man with the weird eyebrows had a good cooperation with Minho. It would not exactly be that bad to work on a case with Gally. Although, it was still a far-fetched idea and Minho would rather keep himself a solo investigator.

 

Minho traveled deeper into the station and got to the upper wing where Newt’s office was located. Upon entering through the door, Minho was immediately greeted by a distinct English accent, “Wha ‘th bloody hell du ya want now?”

 

“Look, you know the new runner case in this town. What’s the details on it?” Minho cut straight to the chase. Newt, a man that looked like he was a high schooler with his babyface, and many locks of golden hair, had an intense look of uncertainty at the Asian male.

 

Newt opened up a drawer to pull out a folder labelled as classified. The British man threw it on his desk and kept the same level of intensity in his eyes at Minho, anticipating the other man in the room to grab it.

 

Minho cautiously took little steps to the folder on the desk before retrieving it. Peeking through the insides of it, he found a stack of photographs being sandwiched by other paperwork in the center. Carefully snaking out the sack, he looked over at each picture to his dismay. “The first victim.”

 

“Leslie Hugh, 18 and a senior at the Glade City High School,” Newt added, shaking his head even though he looked at those photos himself more than once. “She was the first to die among the group.”  


Minho could see the concrete floor she was laying dead on from that piercing. It was a grotesque view, but he swallowed down the heavy lump in his throat. Newt could only stare at Minho for a reaction to the set of photographs.

 

“Ash Padilla, 20 years old, unemployed, homeless, made his living being on the streets despite being a runner. He never used his powers on anyone or on anything,” Newt once again added details to the next photograph of a caucasian man with torn up clothes and a dislocated neck. “And the rest just keeps getting gruesome.”

 

“Is there a link between any of them?” Minho had to ask, but Newt smiled because he knew what the other male was going to ask before it was spoken.

 

“No.” Newt sighed. “Not that we are bloody aware of. The victims all too different from each other.”

 

Minho pondered at what else he could possibly ask to get a lead on the case. “How about the murderer’s weapon that was used?”

 

“Definitively not a fucking knife. These were five bloody runners, Min. Five!” Newt furiously stated. “Who could possibly be that strong to take on this many runners?”

 

“I mean, I have no idea.”

 

“Exactly.” Newt once again sternly stated. “What makes this more frustrating is that the police department is gaining bad rep from the public because we didn’t fucking do our job to prevent this.”

 

Minho felt empathetic towards Newt and did not enjoy seeing the other male stressed out like that. “Look—”

 

“No, you look,” Newt quietly commented, leaning closer over his desk to Minho’s space, “I want this company to survive, and I bloody hell won’t let those grievers or WCKED take that from me.”

 

Minho could do nothing to combat Newt’s actions, for he could only sit there and let Newt take out his frustration. He truly felt sad for the younger and taller man because this case was costing the station to lose its credibility. So Minho decided that he would help solve the case as best he could to help Newt gain some peace of mind, but also to deal with the culprit face-to-face.

 

He wanted to see the face of this sick bastard.

 

Looking at the time and noticing it starting to get late, Minho waved his goodbye to Newt and prepared to go home.


	3. First Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so here's the newest chapter. EnJoY iT yAllS!

Thomas was already home sitting on the couch, eating the pad thai that Minho left in the fridge. Minho had inspected almost all the papers on his way home. His head started to ache as he tried to find a way to get a lead to the case.

 

Upon entering the home, Thomas immediately greeted as he would usually do, “Welcome home, dear.”

 

“Glad to be back,” Minho retorted, sighing as he kept the folder between his arm and side of his stomach. “Thomas, want to look over this case with me?”

 

“Sure! I love trying to solve these little things.”

 

Minho passed over the folder and allowed the brunet to analyze all the papers and pictures for a solid ten minutes. The Asian took this time to relax his mind and give himself a break from the world. Never would he have thought that the most comfortable place on earth was on the couch with Thomas.

 

Thomas broke the silence between them. “Leslie had the power of magnetization. John had the ability to clone himself. I already knew about the girl with the wings. Eta had control over darkness. Lastly, Ash was a teleporter.”

 

“They all are capable of protecting themselves from a threat, or at least getting away from one,” Minho added, knowing that Thomas would have came to the same conclusion anyway.

 

Thomas tapped his finger on the documents as he thought about possible explanations. “You’re right. However, what was the wea—”

 

“No one knows. Cops and other departments still analyzing the scene.”

 

Thomas shrugged as he suggested another idea. “How about the interviews of those that knew these runners?”

 

Minho contemplated about it, and his boyfriend was right about that. The black-haired Asian should have investigated the families of these runners or at least the ones that saw them commonly. He immediately texted Newt about the idea that Thomas suggested. How could Minho not thought of that? With that type of information about the backgrounds or the observed activities of these runners would help bring the case to a lead.

 

Minho had to show his appreciation of his intelligent boyfriend and kissed him. Regarding secondary matters, Minho had to address something to Thomas. “What did you do today? I missed you in the morning.”

 

“Ha,” Thomas chuckled, rubbing his nose against Minho’s, “I was reviewing the safety and other hazards of an experiment that was rebooted. Something called Swipe. I told them it was bluntly dangerous to use.”

 

It was surely a strange name for an experiment to be called Swipe, but Minho tried not to pry too deep into it. Minho was exasperated of the long day. It was great to come home to something worth the trouble. He also liked how talkative Thomas could get. _What a beautiful shuck_ , Minho thought to himself as he allowed Thomas to ramble on about how his old friends would complain how lonely the complex was without the brunet.

 

Pulling Thomas into a death-grip of a hug, Minho inspected the color of Thomas’s eyes. “Pretty brown eyes.”

 

“By Cody Simpson?” Thomas was holding back a giggle, sucking in his lips to prevent the escaping sound. Minho mentally wanted to throw himself into a riverbed because he was sure he was dating the biggest pop-shuck known to man.

 

Seeing that Thomas was wearing a colorful flannel, Minho used his wind powers to cut directly down the line of buttons on Thomas’s shirt. A gasp was heard from Thomas as his chest and belly was completely exposed. “Min! This is expensive, goddamnit!”

 

Minho rolled his eyes, carelessly swirling his finger around as the air changed again. A quick slash was made on the button on Thomas’s pants. At that point, Thomas pouted and gave Minho a face that expressed how done he was with it all. “I seriously want a new flannel after this.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Minho disregarded the information, swiftly working himself on Thomas’s nipple.

 

“What a mess you are,” Thomas murmured, letting his body open up slowly to his lover. He laid back into the couch as Minho held Thomas’s hips down.

 

“Your mess, that is,” Minho hooked his fingertips onto the waistband of Thomas’s boxers.

 

Thomas blushed, covering his face under the darkness. “What a shuck.” Once his face was not overwhelmed in red, he leaned forward with his hands cupping Minho’s face. The brunet captured the lips of the wind-runner and, in the spur of the moment, the brown-haired male carefully slipped his hands beneath the pants that Minho was wearing.

 

Minho let out a soft moan, letting himself shiver as Thomas rubbed gently at the growing bulge in the Asian’s boxer briefs. If that was how the brunet was going to play, then Minho would not mind waging a war between physical touches. It was only going to a war that would last for minutes under his hands.

 

The two wrestled to get on top of the other, and Thomas really endeavored the brute force that Minho was displaying. Only if pure will and determination was enough to conquer the physical strength that Minho possessed. In the end, Minho was on top all over again. Thomas cursed himself that he should really work out with his boyfriend.

 

The noir moved his upper body forward and faked out a kiss to head straight for Thomas’s neck instead. It was a weak spot on Thomas that the brunet wished to had disappear from his body. “No fa-fair!” Thomas moaned out. Minho smiled as he licked and sucked the delicate pale flesh.

 

Heavy breathing echoed throughout the living room; the shadows closing in on their now naked bodies. Thomas had the pace of his breathing hitched multiple times as his hole was rimmed way too long that he swore he had no hole there to begin with. Minho really prepped the other male for what was going to happen next.

 

Minho would sometimes forget that he was in control of air because he had tried to live his life as normally as immunes did. He wanted to give himself a reason to act human besides the fact that he became something that was more than human.

 

In the softest and vulnerable tone, Thomas cooed at Minho, “I was scared.”

 

“Of what?” Minho responded, sliding the tip of his cock into Thomas’s warm lubed hole.

 

Strong passion and deep love being laced in Thomas’s words. The moonlight moved to glimmer upon the clear brown eyes. Crickets chirped whenever there was a pause or silence between the two lovers. “Losing _you_.”

 

Thomas chuckled as Minho kept inserting the rest of his length inside of the brunet. Saddened eyes and an unsure smile whether it wanted to be a frown or an actual smile. Minho began rocking his frontal body in an ocean-like wave, and Thomas moaned out. “Yes. Losing you will be the most painful thing I will ever face because I love you too deeply.”

 

Minho’s heart knew where heaven’s embodiment was, and it was within the lanky body of Thomas. With the sound of leather being stretched and pulled around, the couch sang like that for the remainder of the night.

 

***

 

With a new day that promised a better change, Minho got outside to their backyard to shake the leaves out of the daisies that were growing in their garden with his wind powers. A forceful breeze came by and plucked at dead or weak leaves on the daisies. It was that moment that reminded Minho again that he was not only human.  

 

Thomas was out talking to his ex-company because they had something important to discuss with him. Minho paid no attention on what W.I.C.K.E.D. wanted with Thomas as long as it did no harm to Thomas or to Minho.

 

From the spot Minho was at, he noticed in the distance a black smoke being mixed into the sky. It did not seem too far, but Minho knew that there had to be a fire going on because the smoke was becoming larger.

 

There was something off again in Glade, and Minho got in his car immediately to investigate.

 

***

 

At the scene there was Newt already lining up his platoon of cops. It was a local street in Glade. Minho rushed over to Newt as they both stared at a fire that was burning in the shape of a circle as a man sat in the middle of it. The flames were only getting larger in height as the man could only duly do nothing.

 

The circle of fire was too close to the nearby apartments and local businesses, and it would be horrible if the cars caught on fire because it would only mean explosions were to come. Minho knew it was his time to act as these factors all had a chain reaction to the destruction of the city.  

 

Newt nodded at Minho as the two already discussed of what to do when things like this happened. “Everyone move outta the way!” Minho exclaimed, stepping up to the ring of flames.

 

With the palm of the Asian’s hand, he was able to force out a gust of wind to blow a pathway through the burning flames. He entered it quickly before seeing the face of the fire-runner. A man that could not be any older than 30, and he was certainly tall and skinny. He had baggy clothes with some burnt marks on them. He seemed to had done something to them to get them in that status. Minho analyzed how wide and fast the fire was spreading, and it was obvious it did not move until the lanky man's hand was glowing in a red energy.  “ _He_ cannot be stopped, and I need to save this city,” the man murmured, laying motionless on the ground.

 

Minho confusedly glanced at this man. “Who the hell is he?”

 

The stranger stood up, red energy still glowing. “The earth king. The only grim reaper in this city.”

 

“Bad news for you,” Minho started, using his wind powers to form a protective aura around himself to keep the smoke from contaminating and harming his lungs. “You’re destroying this city instead of saving it.”

 

At this moment, the male had a sudden change in mood. “You think you can stop him!? You think any other runner can stop him!? If I destroy this city, it will be better than what the earth king has in mind!”

 

“Why don’t you calm down first, sir?”

 

“No, I will not.” The fire-runner calmly said. “He spoke to me, y’know? He told me that he would take care of all the runners!”

 

Minho could only walk in meticulous steps because the ring was beginning to close in on them. The other runner crushed his hand, forcing the ring of fire to tighten. Minho believed the other man was trying to actually kill himself and Minho in the process. It was not a problem because Minho was not afraid, for he understood where true fear came from. And a burn will not cause him to falter and cower away.

 

It was going to take a lot more than that to scare off anybody like Minho. The Asian counteracted by using his powers to keep the airflow to keep the fire pushed back enough to keep it from closing in. 

 

The fire-runner walked closer to Minho as a wisp of fire was floating in his hand. “This is it, runner. Time for us to all—”

 

Minho intervened, “I am not letting you have this city, you useless jacked.”

 

The two immediately shot a ball of their elements at each other, which collided and exploded into burst of intense heat. The lanky man tried to throw another fireball at Minho, but Minho already called a checkmate. With a swipe of his right arm, a strong force of wind blew underneath the other man and caused him to trip over.

 

After landing on the frontal body, the other man was about to raise his hand when Minho held his own hand up and then dropped it down. At the same moment the motion was set, the wind pressure was weighing down the fire-user to the concrete floor. Once the other runner was unable to do anything, the fire slowly dissipated because the user was of it was unable to keep control over it.

 

“Good job, Min!” Newt shouted from behind a chief police car.

 

Minho wanted to call it a victory nonetheless, but he felt the atmosphere turning oddly ominous. It almost felt like an actual grim reaper was walking right behind Minho. As if at any moment a scythe will come down and chop his head off. It kept growing and growing like a parasite, and it stopped suddenly like a car hitting a wall.

 

“He’s here,” The contained runner laughed maniacally. “He’s here. He’s here. He’s here!”

 

Minho rolled his eyes at the insanity of the other runner, but he made sure his control of the air was in check to keep the suspect detained from causing trouble again. “Minho! Look above you!” Thomas suddenly appeared after shoving Newt to the side, shouting in complete horror.

 

As stated by the brunet, Minho’s attention was in the sky and a human-sized rock was falling where Minho was standing. The Asian quickly reacted by using his free arm to swing at the giant rock coming at him, which in turn caused the air to intensify and split the rock into perfect halves. The now two pieces of earth fell on both sides of Minho without leaving a scratch on the Asian.

 

Although, the impact of the two rocks caused a rather large dent into the street. Debris still was floating in the air, but Minho obviously did not let any of that touch him while his lover was around. It did not need to be said aloud that Minho wanted to always impress Thomas with his powers.

 

“Oh thank god,” Thomas let out a breath of relief, receiving a few pats on the back from Newt.

 

After a minute of letting Minho’s guard down, the two boulders began to shape shift into a humanly shape. Their head had taken form with smiley faces that looked almost completely horrifying on the monstrosity that was being formed in front of Minho’s eyes. They stood perfectly fine, and both were at least six feet tall. Little pebbles and stones were falling off of them, the monsters looked down at Minho with an murderous aura. Feeling fear striking his heart, Minho was about to set out an attack but was unable to land a scratch on one of them; they moved outrageously fast for anyone’s eyes to catch.

 

One of the earthy figures rushed to Minho’s sided and gave him an almost death-inducing bear hug. Minho struggled as much as he could, but it was too much of a vice grip. The earthy entity began shapeshifting into a giant block without putting mmuch harm to Minho. With only the Asian’s head being left, he was completely stuck where he was. 

 

The other earth doll was by the fire-user’s side. It turned its head in a complete 90 degree angle as the cold smiley face stared with harsh murderous aura into the runner’s eyes. “This is it for me, huh?” The fire-runner chuckled on the floor.

 

Not hesitating a single second, the earth monster picked up the fire-user by the helm of his shirt and swallowed him whole. Starting from the base of his feet to the tip of his hair. Once devoured, the thing looked at everyone surrounding it and smiled bigger than it already was. Suddenly spikes appeared all over the monster and then it reverted back inside of it, omitting a sound of flesh being stabbed multiple times.

 

Everyone was too petrified of what they were watching. No one had the courage to put up their phones and record what they saw. Not one cop pointed their gun at it. A few officers vomited at what they witnessed.

 

The monster then crumbled apart and revealed to everyone the fire-runner. If everyone’s eyes were already struck with shock, they soon felt a new malicious and morbid feeling taking over immediately. There were so many holes in his body that he resembled too much of Swiss cheese. The earthy substance that was falling upon the street went back into the concrete along with all the blood that caught on its rocks.

 

No evidence left except the body. Nothing too important for the police to collect, so they could use the body that was left.

 

Thomas was the first to immediately break the god-forsaken scene. He took Newt’s pistol and ran to Minho’s side. “I’m setting you free of that shit, buddy.” Shooting immediately at the rock prison, but he was also being careful to not let the bullets penetrate too deep that it would damage his precious boyfriend.

 

After using all the available bullets in the gun, Thomas was only able to free one arm for Minho. However, it was all the Asian needed to do the rest himself.

 

Newt came over as the other officers began clearing the area of citizens and beginning to clean up the place. “I-I still want to congratulate you mate, but—”

 

“It’s fine,” Minho interrupted, patting away the rocks and dirt from his clothes. “I understand this was something way too much to handle and especially for your state of mind.”

  
The runners in the area was then reduced to fourteen that day.


	4. Underneath the Surface is Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another update! Things will start to pick up from this time point on~ I wonder if I can continue making everything sound somewhat sweet still XD

Minho began to have nightmares of the rocky opponents he faced for three nights. Never he in his life had he seen something so ominous and downright sick. The movement and complexity of the creatures were beyond a runner and griever. Someone had to be more than a powerful user of their powers to be able to do that type of insane shit.

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Minho cursed in bed.

 

Thomas woke up a little to his boyfriend’s distress. “Wha-Whaaat’s up, Minho?”

 

“Just couldn't sleep properly, that’s all.” Minho partially lied, knowing Thomas would catch it easily because the boyfriend was a scientist and high-class spokesmen. It was as easy as having your cards being easily seen to the other players on a poker table.

 

Thomas sighed, letting his head rest upon Minho’s chest. “You know what makes me sleep better after a bad dream?”

 

Minho swore to god that his boyfriend better not say something with a sexual intent.

 

After a pause, Thomas let his mouth open, “Blowjobs.”

 

_ This shank. This piece of klunk shank _ , Minho thought as he shook his head in disbelief.

 

Thomas repositioned himself on top of Minho, letting the interspace between his groin and asshole be filled with Minho’s crotch. The brunet looked stunning underneath the moonlight that shined in their bedroom together. The way the moonlight would twinkle from the reflection of Thomas’s eyes. Thomas stuttered as he whispered, “I-I really thought I lo-lost you back there today.”

 

Minho’s heart was beginning to palpitate like how excited a dog was when it would see their owner that they had not seen for a long time. Thomas’s long fingers twirled at the string of Minho’s pajama pants. Their breathing would mix and create a strong air of heat and lust. Although the Asian spoke no real words, his body told Thomas all the directions he needed.

 

“You could always tell me to stop,” Thomas teased, grinding down upon Minho’s semi-hard bulge. “I would dare you to tell me to stop, but I know you won’t because you want this.”

 

“Fuck,” Minho breathed out, letting his cock get harder. “Yes. I can’t hold back, Tom.”

 

Thomas planted his lips upon Minho’s, enabling their tongues to duke it out. A real human struggle to dominate and conquer other human beings. Minho being a cheating runner let his wind powers to cut open a hole exactly where Thomas’s hole was. He then used his powers with dexterity to not damage his pajama pants but to release the button where his dick could be freed. Luckily, Minho was always commando underneath his pajamas. 

 

Thomas had no idea what his boyfriend did because he was too enticed in the kiss to let anything distract him. But that would play favorably in Minho’s part because he was able to control the air, literally, to pick up the lube on the other side of the bed.

 

The noir knew that his powers were not meant to be used in this manner, but it was his decision to decide what he could or could not do with the air. And at this particular moment, he did not want to let go of his boyfriend and wanted to begin to lube up his boyfriend’s hole for what was going to ‘come.’

 

The kissing deepened in a level of passion and desire. A strong urge to have the other person’s love fill their entity up as if they were a mold waiting to have love be poured into them. Their bodies shifted the sheets and made the bed’s springs bounce around. A darkness of their room protected them from the public eye, for they were going to commit a sin that would satisfy them.

 

Minho’s erection was already full of its length, and it was more than eager to penetrate Thomas’s equally as needy hole. It was already lubed up because of earlier, and all Minho desired was a signal that it was okay to put it in.

 

Thomas pulled apart from the kiss and genuinely smiled as he opened his mouth to say the words that Minho was waiting for, “Go for it.”

 

***

 

Minho woke up to another new day as he felt refreshed as a waterfall hidden deep in a forest. It was one of those days where Thomas was not out on his own agenda because the brunet was still sleeping stark naked next to the noir. 

 

“Tom, I’m going to make breakfast. Any requests?” Minho asked, nuzzling his nose into the shaggy locks of coffee-colored hair. 

 

Thomas grumbled and moved only by inches. “You.”

 

“Something edible,” Minho retorted, still smiling at the cute remark. The bed sheets were being crumpled under Thomas’s hand as it tried to hug the brown-haired boy. The birds outside past by with sharp whistles as morning light was permeated into their room through the window. 

 

“You.”

 

“So stern,” Minho snickered. “Seriously, though?”

 

“French toast then.”

 

Minho got up from the bed, letting his naked body be touched by the cold air. He shivered at the sensation and decided that the air needed to warm, so he let out a warm breath and controlled it to spin around his nude body to keep it at the perfect temperature. 

 

It really was good to be a runner.

 

On the other hand, Thomas took his time getting out of bed, stretching and then falling back to sleep. He repeated that process over and over until his back started to hurt, and his limbs were tired of being pulled around. The ex-scientist got up and made his also nude body to the kitchen where a smell of cinnamon was trapped in the air of the house.

 

As the two lovers sat at their kitchen table eating their respective breakfast, Thomas revealed to Minho that there was no real information on the earth king. There was never a name like that or the fact that anybody could control an element with such superiority and complexity like that. The only real ones that were capable of that type of control was the grievers.

 

However, there was no known griever to W.I.C.K.E.D. that was able to possess that immense amount of strength. The brunet also added that there were a few earth runners in the world, but there was only one griever that was somewhat possible of such complexity in manipulating the ground, but the only problem was that this griever was stationed at the city of New York City.

 

The name of this particular griever was Dylan. There was no way Dylan could control the earth from that distance on the other side of the coast to where Glade city was.

 

Minho knew he could relate the earth king to the murder of the five runners in the past, but he hit at another stump on the road. It was like picking up the go-to-jail card in Monopoly. The Asian had to rethink their recourse if anything was going to move forward.

 

“You’ll get them, Minho.” Thomas gave his support, offering a gentle smile to suggest that matters would unravel on their own.

 

Minho nodded, appreciating the gesture. “I know I will.”

 

***

 

Newt and Minho met up later that day to discuss the next moves in the department. Newt had a meeting with all the officers in the breakroom. Minho was standing next to Gally as the circle of cops surrounded Newt. “Ya bloody shanks abouta be assigned new routes to better survey the city.”

 

Gally was still the receptionist, even though the man agreed to volunteer if there was any help that was needed. Newt shook his head in disagreement and stuck Gally with his regular job. Gally argued little about it and returned to his original post.

 

To Minho, it was no different because he was a private investigator. He normally did that type of things where he would be forced to be undercover and put himself on the front lines of danger. However, Newt dismissed everyone with their new routes except for Minho.

 

Newt had other plans for Minho back in the office. Minho closed the door because he was the last one to enter, and Newt sat at his desk chair and began to type up something on his laptop. Newt spoke sternly, passing his laptop over to Minho, “Looky here at these interviews of the victims families.”

 

Minho played the clips on Newt’s laptop, which displayed a woman reporter as she began talking to the Leslie and John’s individual families. The reporter began with, “Were Leslie and, or, John known to be affiliated with any crimes being runners?”

 

The mothers from both families spoke, John’s mom being first, “No! My baby is dead and innocent! He did nothing to deserve this death!”

 

She cried into a tissue as it was still traumatizing to have her only son dead. Leslie’s mom talked next, with the same pitch of sadness in her tone, “Leslie was a beautiful woman. She did more good to others than bad. She shouldn’t be killed for being a runner.”

 

Newt paused the video and glanced at Minho, “The rest of the video and all the other videos regarding the other victims repeat the same type of ‘they were good’ and whatnot.”

 

_ Another dead end _ , Minho thought. 

 

These were innocent runners. They meant nothing to the immunes. They were regular people by heart as well. There had to be a connection because there was no way someone could be doing it out of pure, evil, contempt for runners.

 

“The killer could be this earth king that fire-runner was rambling on before he died gruesomely,” Newt started, but he sighed in exasperation, “but it is still an assumption and not confirmed yet.”

 

“At least we know this guy is targeting runners specifically,” Minho commented. 

 

Newt could not disagree or approve of the suggestion. Newt actually thought of that earlier as well, which was why he designed the new routes of all the cops to be located around an area where the remaining runners inhabited in the city. Of course, Newt had to pull a lot of tight strings from powerful underground sources to obtain the illicit personal information of the remaining runners.

 

What really bothered Newt was that he was only able to obtain the whereabouts and other personal information on thirteen of the remaining fourteen runners. There was one runner that was not known to the public, but it was obvious that they had to be their culprit if they could catch that person out. 

 

Newt thought that whoever that last person, that last runner was, they were somebody that knew how to keep clear from being noticed as a runner. Their identity was imperative to the direction of the case, but it was still a long-shot before hitting the target.

 

Minho understood what his coworker was getting at, and he supported any decision that Newt made. The Asian trusted the British man that much, for they had a bond that was forged for many years already.

 

***

 

A week after Newt and Minho had their secret meeting. The park was left alone with nobody occupying it except for one runner. A little girl sat on the swings alone as she used her psychic powers to push herself.

 

She was only ten-years-old, and she understood what type of person she was to society. She belonged to no one because her parents left her at an orphanage. But she was good to her heart because she knew one day a good family would adopt her.

 

She let her lengthy pigtails tickle her shoulder. She was wearing a colorful polka-dotted dress with schoolgirl shoes and white socks. She was one of the few runners left in Glade, and, disregarding her age, she was a powerful user. 

 

One time she bent an entire tree over to let another little girl retrieve her cat from the said tree before unbending the tree with the ease of her mind. But not all the time did she used her powers responsibly. Another time she used her powers to give one of the other kids a wedgie they would have never saw coming because they were bullying a friend of hers. 

 

The only problem with her powers was that she could see into the future, but she could only foresee a little ahead and not absolutely every next moment of her life. However she saw into the future and knew that tonight at exactly after 11:22pm was going to be her final breaths to roam the earth. The psychic user also knew that there was going to be an intervene in her battle between this wicked force that was coming for her.

 

From that point in the future, she did not know whether or not if this person was going to be able to change her fate with death, but she knew the paths of the future was always a water droplet on a window stain: unpredictable from its way from the top all the way to the bottom.

 

It was only 11:21pm, but she almost shivered to know that she was going to face her grim reaper. 

 

30 seconds, she thought with her eyes closed. She left a note at the orphanage in hopes it would explain everything in the morning.

 

Then… it was there….

 

An air she never felt before. Something so wicked and stark evil. Something filled with so much darkness that it was already attacking her mind before the real battle started. She got off of the swing and held her ground as the earth began to rumble. 

 

A man began climbing out of the dirt. She saw it, the body of her killer. “ ‘ook you long enuf!”

 

A slim figure that had to be the exact height of 5’10 tall. The entire head was covered in a gask mask that also had a black mask underneath it to cover their true identity. This person wore a plain black hoodie and black skinny jeans. They put up their hood despite already being unrecognizable. In a breathy voice, the ominous person spoke, “Kim-my.”

 

Kimmy looked at this person in fear but also took her stand to fight off as much as she could to change her fate. She still wanted to meet the family that would adopt her. “Let’s see how you like it when I read your ma-ma-mind…”

 

She stopped in her tracks as she almost gave up in front of the man. She never wanted to read this person’s mind again because the voice, the goddamn voice, was stuck in her head even after she tried to release herself from it.

 

_ Death… Murder… Death to all runners. You will fall into this darkness with me. I will be burying this grave for us all. You cannot stop me, Kimmy. No one can… I will kill you and take your mind apart as I make you watch yourself be tor— _

 

“Shut up! Shut up!” Kimmy yelled, tears falling down from her eyes without her permission. She waved her hand at the dark figure as she shot a psychic bolt at him; a green energy blast.

 

An orange-brown energy circled around the palm of the grim reaper’s hand began to suck up the dirt and soil from the ground. It quickly molded around the hand where the energy was omitting from and then shot it straight at the psychic bolt, which in turn exploded due to equal strength.

 

“Earth king,” Kimmy whispered. Her body seldom twitched since her mind was still being directly affected by the voice inside. She was shaken by the voice in her head, but she was not taking another second to hesitate. So Kimmy shot a barrage of energy balls at the earth king. 

 

Earth king was unmoved by her revealing his name, summoned up a wall out of the ground on his feet. He anticipated another movement in her that would come out as a stronger offensive strike. His instincts were yelling at him that it was coming soon. It was as if the first attack was a diversion for something more creative. Shivers ran down his spine as a smile was growing on his face.

 

Continuing her attack to distract the earth king, Kimmy began to bend the metal poles of the park’s swing set before she torn them apart. They floated in the mid-air at her command, and the obvious green energy that was outlining the surface of the metallic objects. “Let’s see if your stupid dirt can block this,” she confidently spoke, using her mind to bend and transform the metal poles into the shape of sawblades. 

 

Kimmy flicked her finger which made the floating saws spin in high velocity before they were sent flying at the earth king.  _ As predicted _ , earth king thought, and Kimmy immediately felt something was wrong after she launched her attack.

 

He opened his hand with the same specific-colored aura and then closed it. The ground at Kimmy’s feet began to attach itself to her and climbed up until it formed a tight concealing cocoon of the earth while leaving her face out to breathe. As the saws kept flying at him, he doubled the walls that was taking her bombing of energy shots to take on the saws.

 

In fact, it was so thick that it stopped the spinning instantly in contact. With Kimmy being unable to move, she was stuck with the feeling of fear and death closing on her mind. She was unable to do anything with her psychic powers because the concealment was too tight around her body. 

 

The reason being was that runners that were restricted of movement often lose their capability to use their powers. The powers usually flowed better through hand movements or specific gestures. It was like connecting information to other information to retain it better in the long-term memory instead of short-term. A specific gesture could be associated with how one person could project their powers. It was easier to make a runner use their powers through physical gestures as opposed of using their mind. 

 

Only the real extraordinary runners were able to do amazing things with their mind only. 

However, there were still things that runners were able to do that would still shock the immunes, even other runners, of Earth. Unbelievably, Kimmy began to fly in the air in her cocoon-state at the command of earth king’s fingers. She felt the screaming in her mind telling her that she was going to die, but the prediction about the person that would intervene came true.

 

A  _ griever  _ came.

 

It was the woman with silky black hair. She was the same one that detained the runner that could control plants. “I see you like to harm anyone indiscriminately, earth king. I heard plenty about you back at WCKED.”

 

Earth king retorted nothing, but he did let his head fall to the right side as if he were a ragdoll. He surprised the both of the females as he began to change the terrain. The whole park escalated downwards into the earth. It went down deep enough that the sounds of their battle would not disturb the citizens of Glade. Kimmy remained in the air, and she dumbly deadpanned at the depth of their battlefield. 

 

The griever did not look too impressed, but she understood what kind of situation she had gotten herself into. It was a match to the death that the earth king was proposing. The moonlight still lit the field they were in, and she was mentally prepared to attack. All her training gave her the skills it took to be witty and smart enough to outplay the situation.

 

Earth king held nothing back as he began a conducting a symphony as the earthy surrounding started spouting needles directly aimed at the griever. “This is W.I.C.K.E.D.’s Elite Task Force: G0050. I am in pursuit of the target code-name: Earth King.”

 

Her hair produced electricity in every direction of the spikes to counteract the course of action. She continued to speak to HQ, “Earth king’s power levels are indeed higher than one griever. Unsure if he is capable of overwhelming anymore than that.”

 

Earth king laughed menacingly as he had a whole new idea. He released his control over Kimmy’s cocoon, and she freefalls into the pit that they were trapped in. G0050 noticed it and needed to protect the runner as it seemed she was the original target of the earth king.

 

She was about to blast the cocoon to free Kimmy, but something unexpected happened again. The cocoon she was held in began to sprout earth-like butterfly wings. It then sprouted prickly legs as it continued to shapeshift into another one of earth king’s monstrosities. 

 

The butterfly-like monster flew on its own as debris of rocks, pebbles and soil fell down to the park. Kimmy was still at least 50 feet in the air. G0050 did not know she could be able to combat such a strange tactic, but she knew that it was a good tactic to use the hostage as a weapon.

 

With one flap of the rock butterfly’s wings came a hail of projectiles that varied in shape and sizes. Earth king could only use his head gestures to give the griever an indication of his amusement. 

 

“My name is not just G0050,” the griever spoke as the fast-approaching hail was coming down. “I am not just a griever or a runner.”

 

She punched the air with her right fist as a blue electrical energy began emanating from her arm. She glowed in the same color before she shouted with a robust voice, “I am Taima!” 

 

At the same time of her call, her arm exploded the stored electricity into her environment and blow away the ground she stood on. The burst of lightning swallowed everything in its wake, and the earth king could only blankly face at the light shade of blue as it came full-force on his face.

 

Underneath the mask, earth king whispered, “And my name is—”

 

***

 

Kimmy was left on the destroyed ground with the remnants of what was left of the park. There were craters all over the place, and it looked nothing like the beautiful park that Kimmy used to go with the head of the orphanage on Sunday afternoons. She made a weak cry as she could not feel her legs, and it was possible they were crushed while she was in the cocoon. 

 

Kimmy did not have enough strength to even use her powers anymore. She felt it was too late for the griever and herself because she saw the future in the last attack. Her eyes slowly losing its light of hope, for Kimmy knew what happened after the huge flash.

 

Earth king was almighty… 

 

Kimmy in her torn-up polka-dotted dress as there were also scratches here and there on her body. The pure white color of her dress now almost completely dirtied and left little of what the original color was. One of her shoes with the occupying sock disappeared within that attack. Kimmy could not get her face off of the rumble and could only lay there as she awaited the grim reaper to return. 

 

_ I’m scared _ , she innocently thought, shivering as there was no air where they were pitted in. 

 

“I know,” a voice responded to her. “Go to sleep, my runner. You are done running.”

 

Earth king appeared from the dust that surrounded them. In one hand that was completely forged in rock from the walls was Taima stuck in the vice grip of it. She was still gasping for sweet air as she tried kicking her feet around. 

 

Kimmy saw Taima’s death in that attack earlier, for the earth king would snap her neck and toss her body aside before heading over to Kimmy to finish the job.

 

As the gas mask-wearing figure came closer, he took Taima’s neck and bent it in a direction that would ensure Taima was dead, and then he threw the lifeless body to the side as predicted in Kimmy’s foresight.

 

A single tear fell to moisten the earth before the gasmask was right in front of her face. Earth king rose his hand up as the ground Kimmy was wallowing in slowly engulfed her again. He crushed his hand tightly as the pressure inside of the cocoon condensed. 

  
The last moment Kimmy would see was cold black earth…


	5. The World's Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAM! TAKE THIS BITCHES! sorry, I didn't mean it like that bc you all are very lovely for leaving comments and reading this mess of a story and this and that and there and these and I just love you all. Enjoy as usual and do as you free at the end.
> 
> Anyone enjoying the way this story is heading? :D ;D

The next morning the orphanage contacted the police department and gave them the note Kimmy left. Newt was reading it over and over in his office as he tried to comprehend what it meant. Newt then mumbled to himself as he typed up a text message to Minho, “The grim reaper of runners lived in Glade itself.”

 

It was all the evidence Newt needed to understand that the missing runner in the files about the now remaining thirteen runners was obviously the earth king himself. Kimmy was a psychic runner, and it was obvious he would not doubt a psychic that had left such a big clue to the world. It could only be overt that the only one whose powers could not match the command over the element of earth was none other than the mysterious runner in the city of Glade. No other runner in the city had those powers.

 

It also surprised Newt to find out that the griever G0050 from WICKED’s elite military was found dead at the scene. The park was destroyed, but the police did not find out that it was taken deep into the earth. The park was returned to the surface as soon as the tragic battle was over.

 

Newt sighed as the news over the TV in the background was playing the same headline over and over again. “Glade city: where runners run from death.”

 

Meanwhile Minho attempted to enjoy his lunch with Thomas, but there was this uneasy feeling that the earth king could come after him too. The earth king took down not only a psychic runner but a griever too. It had seemed that a tertiary consumer came into the food web.

 

It hit him that there was also a possibility that Thomas could die if he stood in the way of the earth king. Minho would not dare want that future to come true. He would do whatever it would take in his power to take down the earth king.

 

Suddenly,the Asian slammed his fists upon the kitchen table, “How much fucking power does he have!?”

 

“Minho,” Thomas looked at his boyfriend with concern and fear. “Please.”

 

Minho scoffed but realized it was no use of trying to mope over it. “Sorry.”

 

As the two enjoyed their lunch as best as they could, Minho had to do something about the way things were. He was beginning to get tired of how the murders of runners just kept increasing. Insanely, the news mentioned something that only added to his dismay, “Runners globally faced a fear of the _earth king_.”

 

Apparently from the news, the earth king was widespread as an oil spill in the Gulf of New Mexico. It only lead the case into a darker hole when Minho found out that the earth king was committing crimes against runners globally. It really narrowed down to one question as Minho looked deeply into Thomas’s eyes with sorrow, “Who is the earth king?”

 

The TV then redirected the channel to a national alert that was conducted by W.I.C.K.E.D. A woman named Teresa got up on the podium and spoke authoritatively, “We at the World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department made a decision to aim our grievers to protect each city from attacks from this new threat — earth king.”

 

“Wow, he’s the world’s enemy now.” Thomas commented, putting down his plate in the sink. He checked over at the TV that was playing in the living room. “Can you believe how famous he got over a few weeks?”

 

“Are you giving the guy sympathy?” Minho followed Thomas, concern laced in his words.

 

“No, he’s a villain that committed heinous crimes to runners,” Thomas’s modesty beamed through. “Are you?”

 

“Never in all my life would I side with him. I hope he finds a special place in hell,” Minho spat, clearly upset at how the situation was going deeper into murky waters.

 

“If he attacked a griever that was supposedly protecting the runner, that would only mean the earth king could kill anyone that got in the way of his target,” Thomas analytically mentioned.

 

Minho saw no alternative interpretation to that conclusion, so he bobbed his head to show he agreed.

 

The wind around him was beginning to twist into a mild force. Thomas saw it and immediately called out Minho, “Hey, watch out with your emotions! You’re starting to get this weird aura around you.”

 

Minho bowed his head a couple times, letting the air release from his control. He was glad Thomas was there to keep him in check.

 

***

 

As if the publicization of the earth king caused him to disappear from the face of the planet. It was almost as if the earth king did not exist anymore. Once the security was increased globally, more and more runners turned themselves over to W.I.C.K.E.D. to become stronger to take on the new threat. It was an odd time to think that the runners that usually chose to have nothing to do with the organization gave themselves up easily to become grievers.

 

Everyone was scared…

 

It was a simple statement. No one wanted to die to the hands of earth king. Mothers hid their kids once it was late. Fathers kept a shotgun or some sort of gun nearby once night falls. A curfew time in Glade was implemented and only police and other security measures were not affected by this new law.

 

It only took half a year for this become a part of people’s daily life, roaming the streets carefree during the day and in fear at night.

 

Minho could call it chaos, but he also saw it oddly as a union of the world. The differences were all set aside to protect one another. If only they did that more often before, but there was no use whining over expired milk. The Asian looked at the statistics change in their area. It seemed a few of the runners converted themselves over into grievers.

 

Numbers all over the world displayed the transition of runners into grievers. However, this meant nothing to the earth king because the menace never attacked again. He was gone as if he were only an urban legend. People were sure he was waiting for the popularity of him to mitigate, but they tried their best to keep his name blasting all over the news.

 

It was then that the earth runners were beginning to be interrogated and discriminated. Anyone possessing the power of earth was turned over or been lynched due to people’s fear. Then the earth-runners disappeared from society like earth king.

 

No one knew where all the earth runners in the world hid. It was said they just swallowed themselves back into the ground without leaving a trace of themselves behind. It was becoming a time of a unity and separation. It was madness like Alice in Wonderland.

 

Soon time reached past a year, and people were living normally again. They kept the fear of earth king in their hearts, but they decided to pretend as if they were okay to make their life easier.

 

With that said, Minho and Thomas still enjoyed themselves as a couple. They celebrated another year of their relationship together by spending it on being on a hike.

 

It was not entirely Minho’s idea of how they were going to spend their second year anniversary, but it did not matter because Thomas was by his side. It was all Minho needed in his life.

 

***

 

“Wow, what a height that is,” Thomas looked above to the towering trees in their area. “I’m glad we chose the Paradise hike.”

 

Minho was a better hiker than Thomas by tenfold, and he thought Thomas was going to actually use his legs to go over the terrain, but it turned out that Thomas wanted to ride on Minho’s back. “Tell me again why I have to carry you?”

 

“Because you—”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Minho grumbled but smiled. He knew what those last words were. “You don’t even work out that much, so I don’t know why you wanna hike.”

 

“I saw something online from this place that looked really pretty,” Thomas nuzzled himself against the neck of his boyfriend, pointed in the direction straight ahead. “You gotta see it, man!”

 

The endless variation of trees in height and types as they traveled deep into the forest. There were small trees that they could climb and see the view from a certain distance, and there was the gigantic trees that were far too high for them, at least for Thomas, to reach one branch. Moss was almost ubiquitous and humidity was somewhere at 80%.

 

Spiders stayed in their webs waiting for prey. The falcons hover over the cloudless sky to find an unsuspecting animal. A deer ran deep into the forest to hide from an expecting threat. Minho could hear it all in the wind.

 

What was out there in a forest, anyway? Trees, animals, and vegetation. That had to be it, right? Minho was unsure of what to expect out of nature, but he enjoyed the serene air that was floating about. He could control it, but he rather act as if he was not a runner today.

 

Although, there was something about Paradise that had a strange wind flowing in a distance. It was something certainly subtle, but he did not want to overreact on their special day. Thomas left trails of light kisses down Minho’s neck, and the Asian could carry Thomas for as long as the brunet wanted if he continued delivering the good stuff.

 

Thomas made Minho do a few lefts and rights, but it was not long until the reached what Thomas was trying to show his boyfriend  — it was long cascading waterfall. At the base where the water was crashing down upon was a small lake. No one was occupying the waters, so Thomas hopped off of Minho’s back and began undressing. “C’mere, Min!”

 

Minho surveyed the area for any lifeforms. He may have seen a deer in the distance, but a deer would do no harm to them. No humans, though. When he turned to look at Thomas again, all the noir could see was a toned butt shaking as a pale man ran down to jump into the freezing waters.

 

Minho did say that he would not use his powers today, but he decided he would rather not get wet and catch all sorts of debris on his body. So he gave his feet a little bit of wind-like plates that he could step on and walk directly above the water. Thomas frowned seeing the runner pulling off that type of stunt. “Really, you hoe? You _really_ had to do that kind of shit?”

 

Minho shrugged, smirking as if those words did nothing to his pride. “I mean, I rather not get wet today. I got my hair all perfect and stuff.”

 

“You piece of klank shuck,” Thomas groaned, keeping his arms and legs moving to keep him afloat over the water. Thomas kind of wanted to splash some of the water at Minho, but he would rather not drown because his boyfriend was very capable of making a whirlpool if the Asian wished to do so.

 

So instead of trying to stir trouble, Thomas asked something to give them a reason to talk, “You know, I have a friend that is a griever. You two should spare.”

 

“No thanks, Toms. I am not into fighting runners for fun.”

 

“It’ll be a good test of strength!”

 

“No means no, Thomas,” Minho committed to his choice, but it was the a good idea to see what a griever was able to do against a regular runner like Minho. “I’ll think about it.”

 

The birds chirped as sticks on the ground for being carried away by the ants. A whole ecosystem was thriving, and it was somewhat public to society? Minho could not understand why a beautiful place was easily accessible to the world when it should be prohibited of being ventured through.

 

Feeling boredom striking his mind, he thought it would be interesting to see what was at the bottom of the lake. Minho snapped his fingers, creating an air bubble for him to protect him. He told Thomas to get in before the couple began to float downwards into the darkness together.

 

In comparison to earlier, Thomas was no longer wet and cold; he was just cold. He sat in the air bubble, astonished of how matured Minho was getting with his powers. It was beginning to transverse into an abstract dimension that tested how much power and concentration Minho could portray. The brunet watched as the darkness clouded them, but Minho was the brightest thing he could see.

 

There was something cold hiding in Thomas’s heart, but he felt Minho replacing it with a new warmth. It was fulfilling and happy. The shaggy brunet loved it, and he loved the person especially that gave it to him.

 

“Can I tell you something, Minho?” Thomas softly talked, a hitch of sadness riding his tone.

 

Minho gave him his undivided attention. “Go.”

 

Thomas thought about how to phrase it properly first, but he thought it was best to improvise instead. “You deserve to know how it was to work at W.I.C.K.E.D.”

 

Thomas’s work life was never discussed between them because the brunet preferred to keep it a secret or throw little white lies here and there to Minho. The Asian thought it was about time, but he did not want to come out like that with his words, so he calmly said, “Okay.”

 

“I don’t know why but I could only vaguely remember a few of my memories there,” Thomas tucked his legs into his chest, “I always remembered studying runners extra hard. I remembered the late nights I spent before a presentation to not sound idiotic in front of my peers.”

 

Minho leveled himself to match Thomas’s positioning. He watched as the brunet looked awfully troubled by remembering this information. Small bubbles floated to the top and bursted. It was surprising to see no fish taking shelter in the plunge pool. Weirdly shaped plants danced as if they were putting on a show for the couple.

 

“There were these other memories, though,” Thomas started, crushing the soft flesh of his thighs with his hands. “I-I, I think there was this, I don’t know, this weird memory of being strapped down to a testing table.”

 

Silence was singing between them; an unspoken peace as Thomas allowed Minho to absorb the new information. The noir said nothing, but he listened to everything.

 

“I can faintly remember this strong volt being penetrated into my skin. There were all sorts of drugs being injected into me,” Thomas resumed his story. “Something was being tested on me, Minho.”

 

No. There was something else more to it, and Thomas knew there was information being left out in his words. He wanted to remember, and he attempted very hard to, but he could not bring up a significant memory in his mind. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember the rest of it.”

 

“Sh,” Minho insisted, “slim it for now.”

 

It was a simple action, but it meant a lot to Thomas to know that Minho understood the trouble it was bringing to the brunet. He loved that part of Minho so much, and he would _never_ do any harm to him.

 

At the bottom of the basin, Thomas fell asleep on Minho’s lap naked. It was the most peaceful and endearing thing to Thomas to have that type of privilege.

 

As Thomas lightly slept, Minho touched Thomas’s cheek with the side of his index finger and rubbed it warmly, “I love you.”

 

Meanwhile at HQ in WCKED, Teresa was researching the new runners that were being put through the griever training program. Trainees were shooting targets with guns before switching over to their powers. They were also required to incorporate their powers into physical objects, so Teresa observed how they reacted to the task at hand.

 

One subject implemented fire into arrows to make a simple combination. There were all sorts of different expectations set, and the trainee with the most creative form in their attacks often were the ones that passed examinations to become a griever. Teresa’s heels connected with the white flooring as she glanced at another subject multiplied a single bullet into a row of bullets. She placed a check by the subject’s name underneath the ‘destructive’ box.

 

She understood that the program was not meant for the light-hearted. A man fainted the first day of training when all he had to do was greet all the scientist because the scientists seemed intimidating. He was immediately escorted to his hometown. Her infamous words to all the new soon-to-be grievers were, “W.I.C.K.E.D. is good.”

 

She had a lab coat on with goggles protecting her eyes as she wrote notes down on every runner that was succeeding and failing. Her messy bun after a long day of work gave it an almost semi-formal look. She walked down a white hallway, passing by coworkers as she made her way back to her own office.

 

Upon entering, she sighed, removed the goggles, and slumped into her desk chair, looking fondly at a photo of her and her research team. Thomas was also in that photo. She was able to cautiously obtain a classified file after seducing a few security guards to let her bypass. After downloading the file she needed in secret, she made sure she had secured her network and history to prevent detection.

 

After a few minutes of going through documents that were not of her interest, she reached what she wanted to read. She muttered the words, “Stephen Thomas.”

 

Teresa’s eyes looked around to check if she was free to read the document.

 

_Data Log Entry #1 — January 17, 2000_

_Subject: Stephen Thomas_

_Results: Thomas, a fellow researcher among the compound, was taken into testing for W.I.C.K.E.D.’s artificially created runners. The subject, if successful, will become Griever number: 0000. However, the subject was unable to absorb or obtain any powers from G0001 nor G0002 through blood transfusion. Various doses of a certain range of drugs were used to see if it would increase the results positively. It still failed. The shock therapy was proven effective of keeping the subject contained. More experiments will be conducted until results are successful._

 

Teresa was disgusted at the pure inhumane treatment that the organization did to Thomas, but she was subjective on the matter on the viewpoint of what was morally right to both groups. She still felt her heart ache for Thomas’s condition at that time. She clicked and progressed into the next entry to see what else they did.

 

_Data Log Entry #2 — January 18, 2000_

_Subject: Stephen Thomas_

_Results: A new method was used to cross-gene the subject’s blood with G0001. It failed. A new level of voltage was used to amplify the shock therapy done on Mr. Thomas. It was proven successful of containment. But after a while the subject was still flailing on the test table, the various amount of drugs injected into the subject was difficult. After some time, the subject had slowly stopped resisting. Anesthesia was used to keep the subject calm as fellow researchers performed the procedure to place the Swipe program into the subject’s brain. With Swipe incorporated, it could be possible to control the outcome favorably for W.I.C.K.E.D. research._

 

Teresa was outraged at what was performed, but she questioned the credibility of her company if they were doing this to random workers. As if they did not have enough test subjects, so why would they choose Thomas to be a lab rat for them? There was too many questions left unanswered in these entries, but Teresa was compelled to finish reading everything on her ex-worker. Clicking on another new document.

 

_Data Log Entry #3 — January 19, 2000._

_Subject: Stephen Thomas_

_Results: Another researcher had tried to use the Swipe but the voltage level had caused the system to glitch. Certain Swipe functions were left unusable, but the chip was still at a good capacity for functional uses. Reason for the the unexpected glitch was because Mr. Thomas was receiving a higher level of volts at shock therapy. The screaming and crying produced by the subject was left in silence before being quickly replaced by laughter. The laughing was uncontrolled. The subject was feeling no pain, and it begun to scare a female researcher as she caught the stare and smile from Mr. Thomas. The remaining researchers asked if Mr. Thomas knew where he was or knew what was being conducted. Subject responded with a nod as the volts were still used on him. It had seem to everyone that Mr. Thomas had created a persona to counteract the pain. The subject may had obtained a split personality disorder, but the experiment was still a failure. We have not yet made an artificial runner out of Mr. Thomas._

  
The next date of the log after the one she had read was very familiar to Teresa. “January 20, 2000,” Teresa muttered under her breath. She was ready to skim the new document when she remembered the event that took place on that date. Gasping, she immediately read the document and found it rather ground-breaking.


	6. A Revolution Rises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE Y'ALL GO. HAVE FUN W/ DIS ONE BC IT WILL BE ACTION-PACKED. I ALSO HOPE EVERYONE NOTICED THE SPECIFIC FLOWERS I INCLUDED (THOUGH NOT MANY) IN THIS STORY BC THEY HAVE SYBOLMISM IN THEM AND IDK I JUST FELT Y'ALL SHOULD KNOW. 
> 
> Please enjoy the story and thank you all for reading~ Do as you please at the end. Happy reading!

Two months and there were no new attacks from the earth king. The subject of the earth king was slowly dying down, and everyone was ready to move on with their life. Griever status in cities all over the world were still at a high, and Glade still had its curfew laws. 

 

Minho was bored of waiting for something to happen, but he was somewhat glad the darkness in his heart that the earth king left was being pushed back. It was unsettling to think that someone of that status could leave such a mark on the world and then disappear as they pleased. It honestly pissed Minho off.

 

Newt called upon Minho because there was someone to speak to the both of them. The drive to the station was not too long because Minho knew that Newt never wanted anyone to run late if they were called upon by the British man. Upon arriving, Newt was actually outside the station already waiting for the Asian to appear. Alongside of him was Teresa… the same woman from the news Minho saw?

 

Closing the door of his car that was parked in front of the police station, Minho looked baffled at what the two were doing. “What’s going on?”

 

Newt looked at Teresa as if she was supposed to answer that. Another girl came out from the entrance of the police station. She had her hair cut really short as if she belonged to the military or some sort of defense force. Teresa smiled at the other female, “Hi, Brenda.”

 

“I told you it’s G0100,” Brenda responded emotionlessly, taking her post at the front entrance.

 

“Whatever. I’m Teresa if you didn’t already know that, Minho.” Teresa stuck out her hand in welcoming.

 

Minho looked at it suspiciously before he shook hands with the new stranger, “Hi.”

 

“Newt says you are Stephen Thomas’s boyfriend?” Teresa kept her smile a little too serious, but Minho nodded his head regardless.

 

Teresa was wearing a silky white blouse and jet black work skirt, which contradicted the fashion that Brenda was wearing. She had good posture and attitude, but there was something she was hiding behind those dull words. Teresa’s hair was able to tickle her lower back, and she was going to dye it blonde at the tips, but she enjoyed her layers of wavy, chocolate hair. Brenda was eyeing at Minho as if she was prepared to give the Asian a punch to the face.

 

Minho played his actions carefully. Teresa spoke once again, “In this USB,” showing in her hand to the private investigator a small portable device that was designed to look like a cookie, “it contains the classified documents of experimentations on  _ Stephen Thomas _ , who was also my ex-coworker.”

 

Immediately snatching the cookie-like USB from her hands, Minho looked with sneer at the woman in front of him. She continued smiling as if nothing she disclosed was personal. There was certainly something to her air that Minho did not take pleasantly. However, the griever next to her, Brenda he remembered, was not letting any harm be done to Teresa.

 

As if the day could have not have gotten more strange, it did in a matter of moments. The streets began to shake before there were arms bursting out of the covered tar. Brenda looked prepared for something like that to happen, and she started to use her runner abilities without question. 

 

Brenda was able to fabricate guns out of thin air. It was almost absurd that something like that was considered a power to a runner. Two desert eagle pistols were automatically cocked without her touching it. She aimed it directly at the arms and started shooting indiscriminately. 

 

“This is G0100, I have a report of strange arms appearing in front of Glade City Police Department,” Brenda contacted WCKED HQ through her bluetooth. “I’m going to need a surveillance of the area.”

 

The attack was mediocre, but Brenda thought it was all she needed to handle the threat. However, the arms absorbed the ground in the environment to form a protective coating from the bullets. The rest of the bodies came out of the streets, and there were a total of five runners that popped out of nowhere. They each had a black hoodie and a unique theatrical mask to each runner. They all wore similar pants and shoes as well, and their unison almost creeped Minho out. 

 

Both sides were at least over 20 feet apart in different facets of the street. Their intent did not look friendly, so Brenda resorted to use a new approach. The two pistols illuminated in a white glow before she smashed the lights together and stretched it until it was about a little over four inches in length. Hoisting it over her right shoulder, an M1A1 bazooka was transmuted. The light faded and the physical weapon was surely there.

 

It was as real as Minho’s car and the nearby buildings. Minho’s eyes were in absurd shock at the utility she brought to the field. He begun to wonder if the impact was any different from an actual bazooka because if it was the spitting image of an M1A1, then he would need to keep the blast radius from injuring nearby structures. 

 

The Asian looked over at Newt and Teresa to see how they were reacting. Newt looked surprised but pleased while Teresa was still smiling as if it nothing was of her concern. Although, Teresa moved away a few feet before she commanded with a smirk, “Fire!”

 

And that was exactly what Brenda did. The rocket flew out of the cartridge and flew directly at the earth-runners; a white smoke left behind in its wake. Minho mentally cursed as he saw how real the rocket was, so he began to change the atmosphere around the mask-wearing runners to prevent too much of the explosion of reaching the apartments. 

 

In the same moment, all the earth users began to move their hands in a similar motion before a giant hand grabbed the rocket out of the midair and then changed form to look like dough to wrap itself to tightly contain the destructive mission. In union, the earth-runners crushed their hand and the rocket made a faint sound of an explosion. 

 

“Tough bastards,” Newt comically commented. Teresa gave him a deathful smile, and Newt’s smirk went down quickly.

 

All the mask-wearing runners pointed in the general direction that Minho was in. In synchronization, their differing tones came out as a mixed, powerful voice, “We want the runners and grievers-alike to end. You cast us aside like dirt, and now we will crush you using the same material.”

 

Minho almost wanted to laugh out loud because there was an earth-runner cult happening. These people, these runners, were being played like strings of a puppet. Is this what the earth king was doing all this time?

 

If so, Minho had little reason to hold himself back. People were staring at the street from their windows. An old lady was on her apartment balcony watering her striped carnations without noticing the battle taking place below. The fellow police officers behind Minho were also watching from a safe distance. Teresa and Newt remained back as Minho and Brenda were moving apart from each other but closer to the earth runners. The battle was only beginning was what Minho feared and knew.

 

“Brenda, use strategy number: twenty-four. Power strength and concentration at max levels,” Teresa ordered again, losing her smile this time.

 

Brenda nodded without sparing a second glance. “Roger.”

 

The short-haired griever made gas grenade appear in midair in front of her before kicking them at the earth-runners. Gas was already being emanated from it, so once it reached its destination, it exploded in fume. Next, Brenda made a flash grenade appear in her hand as the latch was already unequipped, and she quickly rolled the object at the opponent’s feet as the gas grenade provided cover. 

 

“Ain’t it a bit much, mate?” Newt couldn’t help but ask, standing idly on the side.

 

“It’s not even the full attack,” Teresa retorted.

 

With a literal snap of Brenda’s fingers, floating variations of automatic guns appeared in a surrounding circle of where the smoke engulfed the earth-runners. Brenda gave a thumbs up and a smile before dropping her thumb down along with her smile. Simultaneously, the guns began what looked like an execution circle. Shells upon shells would touch the ground before disappearing and leaving a faint white light. Any bullet that exited the boundary of the ring of guns disappeared to not hurt anything or anyone on the outskirts of it. 

 

After the air cleared up, the only ones standing from that barrage was three runners — a happy mask, a crying mask, and an angry mask. The other two were down on the ground dead. It became obvious who the stronger users were.

 

Teresa looked amused at the strength displayed by these remaining runners. “So the earth-runners that suddenly disappeared along with the knowledge of the earth king were  _ actually  _ working for the earth king in that time period, huh?”

 

The happy mask, who was a male and had an average body weight and was 5’10 tall, responded angrily, “Yes, this world can only belong to us and the earth king.”

 

“He’ll save you all through death, though!” The one wearing the crying mask gleed. The voice belonged to a woman for sure. She was shorter than the happy mask.

 

“I-I-I al-almost d-d-dieeed!” Angry Mask cried, rubbing the surface of the mask if there were supposed to be tears. The voice was a little younger, but the voice belonged to a male. Probably around pre-teens. 

 

Minho really smirked this time. He proudly said, “Aren’t you all wearing the wrong masks?”

 

All three mask-wearing runners looked over at Minho in unison, which still scared Minho. They all raised their hand at him before the ground erupted in earth hands, stretching in its dusty summon. Minho reacted as almost as if he was caught off-guard, but at the same time the air shifted, causing all the hands were sliced into tiny fragments. 

 

“Almost had me there, huh?” Minho cheekily remarked.

 

“I got this one,” Happy Mask spoke. The ground erupted and pushed out four stone tablets before Happy Mask honed them in on Minho.

 

“Then that one is mine!” Crying Mask chirped, causing a portion of the street to be ripped out and turned into a tentacle to come down on Brenda.

 

Minho and Brenda countered their attacks easily; Minho made spinning disks of wind, proceeding to aim them directly at Happy Mask. Brenda sent out a volley of explosives with her dual 40mm grenade launchers at Crying Mask. 

 

The attacks were powerful enough to cause Happy Mask and Crying Mask to stagger in their stance until Angry Mask began moving his arms gracefully. He whispered to the wind, something that Minho can still hear from, “Is  _ that  _ all?”

 

Thousands of little pebbles were stuck in mid-air, surrounding the mask-wearing runners. Anything that came violently across it became stuck with a piece of pebble before another attached itself. All of Minho and Brenda’s attacks became magnetized and became neutralized in those pebbles.

 

Every wind disk and grenade was transformed into a piece of rock. The grenades did explode still, but the sealing was fortified beyond its strength. Angry Mask stuttered in his speech, “Y-Y-You g-g-guys should watch o-o-out next time!”

 

“Whatever,” the other two masks synchronized in speech. 

 

Happy Mask looked above and noticed a lot of potted plants on people’s balcony. An idea sprung and he needed to put it into action immediately if he wanted to make the battle come to a faster outcome. “Angry, cover me. Cry-baby follow my movements and concentration.”

 

“Aye, aye, Captain!” Crying Mask cheerfully sung, beginning to copy the arm gestures that Happy Mask was doing.

 

Minho did not like how they were conjuring something on their sleeve, but the angry mask-wearing runner turned his direction over to Minho and started the first offensive strike on him. 

 

Pieces of the street and sidewalk was taken apart by Angry Mask’s power before it circled around Minho. The Asian tried to slice all the earth with his powers, but it was no use of resisting because it did not stop it from closing it and trapping Minho’s ankles and parts of his legs. In fact, the more he struggled to free himself, the more the trap was swallowing his body. “Not again!” Minho cried out.

 

“Brenda, free Minho,” Teresa commanded as she pulled out twin G43 pistols hidden underneath her skirt. She fired freely at Angry Mask and also told Newt to join in. 

 

Newt called out the rest of her officers to join in and have a firing range at Angry Mask. It was not like the earth runners had no defensive since their element was literally everywhere on their feet. Angry Mask surrounded himself and his teammates in a protective shell, but he left an opening at the top because his team were not done with their plan.

 

Brenda’s right hand was covered in a blinding white light before a sledgehammer erected from the aura. She made the light disappear and smashed the earth cocoon that Minho was trapped in. Out of nowhere, an old lady screamed as white petals with red outlining the edges were scattered among the field. Minho and Brenda looked up and saw that the soil that all the plants were in on the balcony were coming together as one giant ball. 

 

Happy Mask sinisterly laughed, having his arm fall to his side after completing the transference of energy. “Rain down.”

 

“That was lots of work!” Crying Mask sung, letting her own arm fall to the side. 

 

Angry Mask stuttered his statement, also committing the same action as his teammates.“T-T-Took long en-enough.”

 

The soil ball the earth runners created began to pulse and shot out hundreds of sharp pricks below at the police officers, Brenda, Teresa, Newt, and Minho. 

 

Minho’s will was ultimately powered by the determination to defeat the insidious evil that was growing in his city. With all of his abilities, he had enough power to combat not only one runner but multiple. The Asian was tired of death plaguing everything in the good Glade he knew, and it was time for a light to be seen out of this darkness. Minho maneuvered his index finger, forcing the air to violently spin around the earth-runners. They were about to move something from the ground, but Minho felt the air warning him that something was coming as a threat. Without a second of hesitation, his tanned finger pointed up and a cyclone began to form.

 

“Christ, Min, slim it,” Newt remarked, looking upwards as the three runners were sucked up and spun around by the force and suspended twenty feet in the air. All the soil, pricks, and earth walls they created were being vacuumed into the cyclone, preventing the innocent people to be harmed.

 

Minho was powerful, for he knew how to control the environment with enough dexterity to not harm what did not need to be damaged such as the nearby cars or buildings. Teresa saw this as a demonstration of a revolt against the earth king. She could not help but also think that Minho would have been the strongest griever to W.I.C.K.E.D. if he had turned himself over.

 

“Brenda, toss in a knock-out grenade,” Teresa plainly commented. Brenda did as she was told, but she happened to have a delightful smile.

 

“No problem.”

 

Before Happy Mask was losing his consciousness, he conjured up a spear made out of from the streets below him as the wind was violently keeping him in the sky. He controlled and timed the moment before he launched the spears directly into the hearts of the crying and angry masks — instantly killing them.

 

It was all he could do before he faded to the blackness.

 

***

 

It was victorious accomplishment to have captured a follower of the earth king. It happened that the runner that was held captive was the griever Dylan from New York City. Minho brought Thomas over to the station to let his boyfriend analyze the culprit. Brenda and Teresa were also there to keep a steady eye over the captive.

 

Thomas and Teresa had a nice reunion before the brunet had to go over to the jail that held Dylan. It was a little strange to Thomas to look at Dylan because the other male was giving Thomas an intense glare. “He surely wants to kill me,” Thomas added as he checked the bars of the jail cell.

 

“He gives that look to everyone here,” Teresa added. “Hey, Minho! Let’s talk on the side for a bit?”

 

Minho was pulled away from the scene, and Teresa’s smile faded as she seriously spoke in a quiet manner. “Look, you dumbass, go home now and look over at that USB.”

 

“Whoa, missy. Slim it,” Minho backed up an inch as she transformed into a fire-breathing dragon. Well, not literally, because that would suck for Minho to fight another freak of nature.

 

Teresa grabbed Minho’s buff arm and dragged him close to whisper in his ear, “Go. Home. Minho.”

 

“Gotcha,” Minho shoved Teresa back. He was happy to at least get his arm back from her. 

 

As Minho left without any further notice, Teresa went back to the area to check up on Thomas. 

 

Newt and Gally were leaning a little too close to the bars as they taunted Dylan. They made comments about wearing the angry mask next time because Dylan was wearing the happy mask before. Brenda was resting her back against the wall that Dylan’s back was also against. Not entirely bothered by the sneering remarks, Dylan calmly breathed as he thought deeply about his next action of plans, hands gently touching the wall behind him.

 

Thomas looked over at all the walls around them, and he noticed something wrong with the wall that was directly behind Dylan — it was a brick wall. Thomas was about to say something about it until it was too late.

 

Dylan smiled sinisterly, “He’s gone now.”

 

The wall was under his full control, and he first made a brick wall move to shove a surprised Brenda forward before shooting a few bricks at the back of her head, knocking the griever out in an instant. Newt and Gally instantly got back and pulled out their pistols at the ex-griever.

 

“No bullets can harm me, boys,” Dylan scoffed, the brick wall literally swallowing Dylan and giving him a protective armor from harm. Eventually he took up the whole brick wall from the station, leaving it open from the back. However, he was not going to escape.

 

He wanted  _ revenge _ .

 

Dylan now was cladded in a brick suit too thick to allow bullets to hurt him. He stepped forward, debris of dry mud and cement falling to the white-tiling floor, and he bent the iron bars in front of him to free himself. Before Teresa was able to run, the material surrounding Dylan’s left arm created a brick spike, and he threw it accurately at her chest.

 

She fell to the floor as her blood colored the white ground. She coughed and coughed until her blood was clogging her throat. She wanted more time to live, but she looked at Thomas, who stood shocked, with her dying breath and said, “W.I.C.K.E.D. is good.”

 

Dylan was not complete with everyone in the room yet, for he was only beginning to bring the world apart. He was going to save the world from the evil.

 

Newt looked at Gally and shoved him to make a run for it. Gally almost stayed, but Newt furiously insisted. Thomas fell to his knees as he looked up to Dylan. “I’ll show you how powerful the  _ earth king _ really is,” the earth-runner uttered, grasping hold of Brenda’s neck. 

 

A crunch of neck bones roared throughout the room before a thud was produced on the floor. Newt had the strongest urge to run for his life, but he could not leave Minho’s boyfriend behind. He had to do something, and he had to do it fast. Hoisting the gun up, Newt fired at the brick figure. Dylan drew his attention from Thomas to Newt. “That’s bloody right, you slinthead! C’mere and fight me!”

 

In the same moment of action, Minho was occupied at his laptop screen at home. He almost finished reading all the entries, and he was frankly disturbed by the inhumane, unsettling, provocative treatment for Thomas.

 

Minho was ready to read the last document until he received a text and noticed it was from Thomas. He read the message aloud, “Need help to fight earth king. Police station destroyed completely. I don’t know who else survived.”

As Minho rushed over to his boyfriend’s side, the last entry was left open on the table.

 

_ Data Log Entry #4 —  January 20, 2000 _

_ Subject: Stephen Thomas _

_ Results: Mr. Thomas was released from the experiment. He showed no known capability to produce runner-like powers. A new subject will come in soon, and the experiment will start all over. We used the Swipe to eradicate as much of his memories of him being tested on. Mr. Thomas will go on with his research at W.I.C.K.E.D. There were some slight problems with Swipe that it could not erase the split personality that Mr. Thomas obtained. It seemed that he would only switch over when under intense pressure and pain. We may secretly want to give off a small jolt to the brain from time to time to see if Thomas would switch over to his other persona in certain situations. This will fall under our own faults if we are caught for this extra activity done to Mr. Thomas. We will take blame, but we would still continue to use the Swipe to experiment on our own agenda and not W.I.C.K.E.D.’s. End of W.I.C.K.E.D.’s Artificially Created Runners: Subject — Stephen Thomas. _


	7. Rebirth of Lurking Darkness: Memories Awaken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the story y'all! This is nearing a conclusion, and I hope y'all are ready af. Thanks for reading this far w/ me on this clusterfuck! All of you kick major ass.

Not caring of the speed limit, Minho arrived at the rumble of the police station. Thomas was not kidding that it was practically erased. The Asian got out of his car and ran over to center of the ruins. It was a giant pile of leftovers of the Glade City Police Department station. There were some bodies on the side that remained motionless. It was as if he stepped on a graveyard.

 

On the farthest side from where Minho was, Thomas pushed and shoved piles of polyester walls and other crap away from him as he got himself back on his two feet.

 

Minho was eccentric. “Thomas! Thank god!”

 

“Minho!” Thomas reciprocated the feelings.

 

Another voice roared, unwanted and out of the blue, “I will have my revenge for what this bastard did!”

 

Dylan arose from the trashed pile, but he was not letting his words go in vain. He summoned up two boulders from the ground, which was easily accessible now that he was free from the confinements of the police station. The floating rocks soon transformed into two medium-sized rocky butterflies. 

 

Minho was not going to let that happen. “You’re going to have to kill me first before you can get to Thomas.”

 

Dylan looked unamused until he thought about it for a moment. With a smile, he accepted the dual, “Come, pitiful runner. Your time ends here.”

 

The two rock beings began to flap its wings and bombarded Minho with stones. Using a windwall, Minho tried to secure himself from being damaged too heavily but the objects, but a few of the stones managed to penetrate through and hit his body. He remembered the smile on Newt’s face when Minho was first registered with the Police Department. A heartbeat intensified within him as something was being formed in his red heart.

 

The strength of the windwall was beginning to block every stone without struggle. Minho growled before releasing a roar that blasted away the attack of the butterflies. Eyebrows knitted to the center, the rumble crushed beneath Dylan’s feet, and Thomas struck with awe at the dramatic scene.

 

“You know, wind runner, you should have submitted to me. This would make  _ his  _ and your death less painful,” Dylan scoffed, conjuring up rocky monsters with smiley faces from the ruins of the police stations. 

 

The flashback of the first discovery of the earth king’s presence came into Minho’s head, and he knew that Dylan had to be the menace to Glade City. Another memory played of him laughing with Gally on a lunch break about the fact that Newt clogged the male’s restroom. He smiled before frowning to the knowledge that Gally was also gone.

 

There was no Gally or Newt alive anymore — all of the police station department was buried and dead. Humanity was slipping away like a gentle breeze, and it was like that in reality as well. A small gust of wind flowed through all the monsters except the butterflies and Dylan. “Cut,” Minho plainly murmured.

 

As if the wind was a person, it listened and utterly split and diced all the monsters Minho wanted to disappear. They were not nearly fast enough to dodge anything as subtle as that attack. It was too silent and unnoticeable to pick up on. By the time you noticed the wind past by you, you were already dead.

 

Dylan was shook by the fearsome demonstration of power; he staggered a little before finding his balance again. He made a small curse to himself before he talked, “I’m running out of patience. This has to be put to an end, my fellow runner.”

 

Minho was silent as he furrowed his brows more. His heart was dying in agony over the loss, but the darkness was forming nicely inside. It was stirring his emotions into something overwhelming in flavor. 

 

Dylan quickly snapped two of the legs of his creations and forced the objects in both of his hands to twist and forge together to make a drill-like spear. Not thinking second-thoughts, Dylan looked like he was about to aim it at Minho until Thomas yelled, “No, Minho!”

 

Dylan looked pleased because he  _ faked  _ it. He instantly turned his attention to Thomas and launched it at the him.

 

It was Minho’s turn to feel his heart jump out of his ribcage because he blanked out as the sharp object was spinning beautifully through the air, penetrating all forms of wind that was in front it. The rocky butterflies began flapping its wings again, sending forth another wave of rocks at Minho. 

 

Minho was stuck in a predicament — he had to save Thomas, but he had to save himself first if he wanted to protect Thomas.

 

The stone projectiles were honing in on Minho at the same time the spear was getting closer to Thomas’s heart. He had to decide — Thomas or  _ himself _ . Minho never felt himself cry, but once the first teardrop hit the floor, he made a shout so loud that it left an echo throughout the neighborhood. 

 

As the scream prolonged, the rocks coming his way were quickly blown away along with the butterfly  creatures. Dylan struggled to hold his ground as he was in disbelief. The air around the spear was tight enough to prevent it from moving an inch closer to Thomas’s heart. If it did move any more than an inch, it would have surely killed Thomas.

 

Minho leered at Dylan, and he held out an open hand in the earth-runner’s direction. Thomas was still taken aback by everything that had happened, but he was still surprised of what Minho did to Dylan. 

 

The noir took the air literally out of Dylan’s lungs. The earth-runner struggled breathing as a gust of wind was escaping out of his mouth and nose. It kept rolling out of Dylan that he was kneeling and crawling on the floor as Minho continued to siphoned the oxygen that was needed to live. Dylan’s last words were muffled and strained. “I-I am—”

 

Gone.

 

Minho took the final breath out of Dylan’s lungs and did not allow any air inside of the earth-runner. The battle was over when the lifeless body made a loud drop to the debris below. He would have let Dylan finished his words, but he was not going to let kindness enter the field. 

 

There was no kindness for Dylan if he did not spare the lives of New, Gally, Brenda, Teresa, and the rest of the Glade City Police Department. Letting a breath of exhaustion and relief, Minho collapsed as his body could not take anymore strain.

 

“Let’s take you home, Minho,” Thomas chuckled as he sat next to Minho.

 

“Yeah. Can I get topping permission for the rest of the year?”

 

Thomas laughed as it was awful that Minho was cracking jokes as their lives were literally at stake. “I’ll think about it, champ.”

 

“Man,” Minho cursed, “and after what I just did. I defeated the earth king.”

 

Sirens were ringing thoroughly in the background as they shared a small kiss before Minho knocked out.

 

It was finally over… 

 

Minho was resting on the bed, but Thomas still had enough energy in him to be awake. He walked over to the kitchen and noticed the laptop on the table. It was already late, but he saw no harm in seeing what his boyfriend was reading up on.

 

It seemed to be a series of  _ documents _ . Thomas read the title of the documents before he dropped his mouth as he read entry four. After his shocking revelation, he proceeded to rest of the entries and was attacked with another headache.

 

There was something Thomas needed to do for himself as he went back to check on Minho. “I’ll be back, Min,” Thomas kissed the forehead of his dormant boyfriend.

 

***

 

Thomas was in front of an ivory door. It was an apartment complex deep within Glade. It was underground, but the person Thomas was going to talk to had the whole floor to himself and his wife. Thomas looked down at his feet and laughed at the ‘Leave’ mat.

 

The door opened and an older man looked at Thomas happily until the smile on the man’s turned upside after Thomas spoke, “I want Swipe out of my head, Hans.”

 

Hans began ranting, “Get out. I’m done and retired with work. Kids like you should enjoy your life while you can becau—”

 

“No. I’m serious and get this fucking chip out of my head!” Thomas yelled, which caused Hans’ wife to see who was causing the commotion at the front door. “I want to remember everything.”

 

Hans sighed heavily, looking into the eyes of his confused wife. “Please prep the table.”

 

In no time Thomas was buckled down to a table as Hans was about to begin operating on removing the chip from Thomas’s head. He did nothing too serious yet, but Hans explained, “You know once the chip is removed, you will not exactly gain all your memories instantly. It will only become easier to remember them because there won’t be anything blocking you from remembering your deepest memories.”

 

Thomas groaned because he knew that type of answer was going to come out of Hans’ mouth. “Just do it.”

 

***

 

Minho woke up to Thomas to his side as if it everything that happened earlier was a dream, but his sore body said otherwise. He saw his phone on the drawer next to the bed, and he pulled the device closer to get an idea of what the date was.

 

It was five in the afternoon, and Minho realized he slept way beyond what was necessary. Although, it wasn’t too bad; he had Thomas under his arms and everything was going to be okay again. 

 

It was August 10, 2017, and a prediction for another lunar eclipse was set on the 21st. Minho was sure of what would be another normal day for the recreation of more runners. The noir had hoped that W.I.C.K.E.D. could be exposed for the past experiments they did to innocent immunes like Thomas. 

 

On the other hand, Minho did not want to deal with paparazzi that would come to the exposure of W.I.C.K.E.D.’s secret agenda. He also did not want to be world’s enemy because facing the powerful organization was almost declaring a war on the whole world. It was not Minho’s intention to drag his already hurt boyfriend into a muddy abyss.

 

Peace was all Minho wanted.

 

The funeral was a held for the police department over the weekend, and the mourning families let out their tears for the people that lost their lives. 

 

The following week Thomas had recurring nightmares from the 14th of March until the 18th. The first day had Thomas waking up and telling  Minho everything he remembered from the nightmares. Minho tried to console the crying brunet as he said, “I kil-killed them, Min!”

 

Minho tried to the hush Thomas, who was sobbing into his chest. “Slim it, sh, it’s okay.”

 

“No, Minho, they stared at me with such pitiful eyes! I could have spared them!”

 

There was ardent melancholy that Thomas was feeling, and Minho was only able to make ambiguous words to attempt to put the freaked out male in control. “I know you wouldn’t kill anyone, Tommy. Just slim it.”

 

“I can’t,” Thomas said in a broken and calm voice, “Dylan, Newt, fucking Teresa, man, and everyone else was killed in that building. I could have saved them instead.”

 

“I wished that I came fast enough to stop it, but I can’t let the past come haunt me,” Minho was rubbing down Thomas’s back. The sobbing had died down slightly. “They’re just nightmares, anyway.”

 

But it was apparent to Thomas that these nightmares were not only dark imaginations of fears because they were  _ memories _ . 

 

Everything was coming back to Thomas on the 19th, and he did not smile that whole day. There was a strange equanimity that Thomas possessed, and it threw off Minho because there was so much crying and nightmares beforehand. It could not have stopped like that. There was no point of playing the game of the boy who cried wolf. 

 

Minho endeavored the silence and tried to make small talk. “Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Thomas could only plainly rely, almost so disinterested that Minho lost his motivation to continue on with the conversation. 

 

By the 20th, Thomas avoided Minho throughout the day. Minho had to resort to the usage of his runner abilities to track down Thomas, but it was strange it was no help. It was almost as if Thomas disappeared from the face of the earth, or the brunet was not in the range of Minho’s wind’s range. The Asian could only control so much of the wind, anyway.

 

He gave up once night fell. It may have been slipshod work that Minho had performed if he did not find Thomas. It was not like he could text anyone he knew from the police department to help. It was only a cruel joke Minho played on himself, and the only one laughing to it was himself. Sleeping in their shared bed, Minho was gone in his dreams as Thomas was suddenly sitting on the bed. “I’m so sorry,” Thomas whispered.

 

It was soon the 21st, and Minho was out by the park that was reconstructed after it was destroyed by the earth king that was Dylan. The morning was almost freezing, and Minho could easily change it to be warmer, but he wanted nature to be in control of itself instead of someone else doing it. Thomas said that he would catch up with Minho to talk about something imperative after he completed a task that he had given himself. 

 

Everyone was expecting the lunar eclipse to come down tonight, and it was going to be a serious event. It was what determined who was still immune and who was a runner; a cycle that could not be stopped. It would only spin and spin itself into oblivion.

 

Kids were sliding down the slides as their parents conversed about their personal lives. Minho enjoyed the reconstruction since they added more benches to sit on, and there were more structures added to the playground for the children to enjoy. 

 

Minho was calmly looking at the sky above from the bench he was at. “Cloud-starring?” Thomas asked as he came into Minho’s vision but upside down.

 

“How’s the world being reversed like that?” Minho cheekily asked a question back instead.

 

Thomas giggled as he transitioned from the behind Minho to next to him. “I have something to tell you.”

 

The air quiet down, and there was the odd feeling of being watched. The people crowding the park looked like ordinary immunes, but they were clearly sending contempt at Thomas and Minho. The Asian was becoming on the defensive as he noticed more than one person staring at them before looking away.

 

One lady held a phone to her hand as her face was obviously in the direction where Minho was. The noir whipped his phone out and begun checking the statistics of runners in the area. “I’m so, so sorry, Min,” Thomas’s voice was almost cracking.

 

“What the,” Minho was blankly staring at his screen.

 

There were  _ 100  _ grievers in the city while the amount of immunes were slowly decreasing.

 

It was almost as if the city was evacuating the immunes into another area. There had to be a meaning to all of it.

 

“I’m sorry,” Thomas was repeating his sorrow again. “I-I can’t do th-this.”

 

“Then we will,” somebody said. “Give Minho over.”

 

Minho knew there was something disturbing the flow of the air. Certain emotions can be caught in the breeze, and it was almost as if Minho’s element was his body. He could smell things from a certain far distance, taste food that were not in his mouth, and feel any disturbances in the air. It was something he honed himself to do, and he was glad he did so.

 

The park was filled with grievers the whole time. Minho should have felt something wrong earlier, but it seemed they were skilled in hiding their true intent. However, he was baffled on why they would want him for no reason. Was Thomas afraid of losing Minho? Because if that was the case, he was not going down without a fight.

 

Instantly, Minho and Thomas was surrounded. There was no escape running wise, but Minho could easily take his boyfriend and himself into the safety of the air, but they would only be waiting for them to touch the ground again. As the grievers around them began taking off their clothes to only reveal their W.I.C.K.E.D. elite task force uniforms with each of their own assigned identification number.

 

Thomas looked at the face of a man and woman and knew exactly who they were. A nightfall deep inside of Thomas’s eyes as he saw the original two grievers whose ID’s were remembered in the cruel experiments that was conducted on him. “G0001 and G0002.”

 

The original two grievers of W.I.C.K.E.D. were runners of light and dark. They were more than exceptionally strong element users, and they were as equal in power to each other like yin and yang. The two were soldiers that questioned nothing of their organization and were the most loyal to W.I.C.K.E.D. than any other griever. They were always paired together to deal with the most stubborn of runners, and they would occasionally kill runners if they were ordered to.

 

Minho did not falter because he wanted to protect his boyfriend even if it meant the Asian would get hurt in the process. Minho was ready to set up an attack until the lady that was labelled as G0002 made a flash that covered the whole park, blinding Minho and Thomas.

 

“After light, there is shadows,” a man’s voice whispered behind Minho’s ear. An eerie shadow-like tentacles grasped all over Minho before he sucked him into complete darkness.

 

_ Cold _ , Minho initially thought, suspended in a realm of no light. It contrasted heavily to what it was earlier. He could not move his arm, his leg, his toes or anything. He could blink but the darkness matched the same shade that was underneath his eyelids. At some point, Minho did not know if he was blinking or if his eyes were closed.

 

The next feeling came over him that he wanted to sleep, go into a dormant state. It was so comforting to be lying among the darkness. Nothing there to hurt him. Nothing to tell him something. No one to complain about having no milk in the fridge… there was no one telling him to wake up because he would be late to go to work. No one to welcome the Asian when he got home after a jog. 

 

Who was this person? Minho was so fogged in the dark that he could not remember who the name of this person was. There was someone with bark-colored hair that also needed haircut. Their annoying shuck-face smiling at Minho in the morning, preparing breakfast the way Minho liked it, and singing all of Minho’s least favorite songs to irritate him. 

  
Most of all, Minho knew this person would say the most memorable words to him. “I love you, Minho.”


	8. Wretched Egg in the Bird Cage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR EVERYONE THAT COMMENTED AND WE ARE TOTALLY GETTING NEAR THE END OF THIS STORY! I HOPE Y'ALL ARE PREPARED AF BC HERE WE GO. Enjoy reading and do as you please w/ this story~

What Minho did not check the city for was the amount of runners left, which was only _two_.

 

Thomas cried, trying to pry off the darkness that swallowed Minho’s body. He kept grasping his fingers on the element, but it would always fall through like he was trying to touch a ghost. He sobbed insanely loud, not sure if he was going to not see Minho again, but he had to continue doing something or else that fear would come true.

 

“Give it up, Thomas,” G0002 calmly spoke. “He won’t make it out of there so soon.”

 

“Wh-What was the name of you two again?” Thomas was still sobbing over Minho’s status, “You’re Nyx and he’s Charon? Ironic, isn’t it?”

 

Nyx elegantly walked over to Thomas as her heels clicked and crunched on the gravel on her feet. The place was still covered in the blinding light that Nyx put on. She summoned up a scythe from thin-air. “I do not care.”

 

“Nyx,” Thomas held down a cry, sitting idly as the angelic grim reaper was about to hover over him. “means goddess of the night, but you are a runner of light.”

 

“You will die for this man, yes?” Nyx questioned, a thick foreign accent apparent in her voice. Placing the sharp edge of the scythe against Thomas’s neck, she gazed it enough to make him bleed a small amount.

 

Nyx was trained into not answering questions not relevant to her mission, and she knew that WCKED had special orders for her to detain runner subject: Minho. There was also the request she received to not harm the wind-runner, but she may hurt _Stephen Thomas_ as she pleased. Nyx took it to her heart to see her duty would be fulfilled without light laughter over mediocrity.

 

The fact of the matter was that Nyx also was also supposed to be cautious of the capability of Thomas, as he was absolutely witty and unpredictable. Her silence was not ignorance, for she understood that Thomas’s questions were very analytic.

 

“Yes, I will die for this man,” Thomas said, pulled back from the edge of the blade and whipped out a taser gun. Nyx looked at the gun for split second before the tendons of the taser attached itself to her.

 

At first she wanted to laugh at it because she was sure it would not hurt her. Thomas smiled as a mixture of volts and amps was delivered to her and electrified her entity. Nyx cried intensely and fell to the floor twitching. In all of Nyx’s training, she understood that she would have become somewhat resistant to electric to become a better soldier to WCKED, but she never felt such a shockage being transmitted to her body. It was like putting your finger into the spiraling gears of a shredder.

 

“I modified the taser to be exclusively painful to runners,” Thomas commented as he put the gun down on the floor. He looked apologetically to Nyx. “I really hope you do hate me for this.”

 

Thomas analyzed the clouds of shadows that was settling in the place where Minho stood. He reached down inside the darkness with his arm and understood that it surely took his boyfriend into another realm because the ground could not be reached since the darkness already engulfed his most of his arm without an end. Thomas sighed, and pulled out a little small white ball from his pocket.

 

The brunet dropped the object, and it bounced around until it made a complete stop. It did not roll away, nor did it seem to be moved by the force of the wind. It did, however, wiggle before unraveling itself to be a long centipede-like creature. “Activation password: Beetle Blade.”

 

It grew out 12 blade-like legs and had four claws near its face that were retractable. Nyx was able to endure enough of the pain of being electrocuted that she stammered to say, “T-Thos-se are—”

 

“I know, and I modified these too, Nyx.” Thomas interrupted her, saving Nyx the trouble of wasting her energy. The little machinery took life after it was activated with its glowy red eyes. It began scouting the area and giving birth to more of its kind as it was becoming a growing swarm. “I’m not going down without a fight for Minho. So give him back, Charon!”

 

The other 98 grievers in the area were provoked by the action and began attacking, but the beetle blades were the first to strike them instead. They were reinforced with a particular force field that made them basically runner-proof. Completely unhurt by all of the grievers powers and multiplying itself, the beetle blades crawled all over the park under Thomas’s order.

 

Thomas always admired the way a cockroach would always die but become immune to the killing force by multiplying itself with another roach that was the strongest one. Thomas was inspired by the adaptability concept and put it as a burden on himself to create the beetle blade, a device used as a spying program for W.I.C.K.E.D., to become an anti-runner defense.

 

Thomas was able to modify one beetle blade to give birth to other beetle blades along with each and every one of them to be equipped with an analyzing force field. The truth to the machine was that the only one that was not equipped with a force field was the mother. It was capable of looking over at all of its children and seeing what destroyed them, and it also took it upon itself to give birth to a stronger beetle blade based on what it analyzed.

 

It was more than an act of revolution against WCKED to Thomas because it was his last resort of saving something he found absolutely precious. No one or organization was going to take away his boyfriend while Thomas was breathing and alive.

 

Charon was tempted to get out and save Nyx and his fellow runners, but he did not wish to disrupt his powers over Minho. The wind-runner would be troublesome on the battlefield. He was more empathetic towards his teammates than Nyx was because they were the antithesis of each other’s being. However, there was something still bringing them together despite the drastic differences: love.

 

Hearing Nyx’s agonizing screams only brought him more anger within himself. He may not be as strong as his counterpart, but he was still strong. The dark clouds near Thomas was bubbling sporadically before it spewed out needles at the taser. Thomas gasped at the broken device before a volley of needles was shot at him. He protected himself from receiving any fatal damages with his arms, but he was still feeling the pain surging in his veins.

 

Charon’s body become to manifest itself from the darkness. “Hurts, don’t it?”

 

“Fuck you,” Thomas spat as he got on his knees with his arms bleeding out due to the planted needles.

 

“Here’s the best part of that simple attack,” Charon stated. “It doesn’t just pierce your body the first time. My element doesn’t stop there, Stephen.”

 

Realizing what Charon meant, Thomas cried out, “It spreads!”

 

“Exactly.” Charon agreed, snapping his fingers. More needles pierced through Thomas’s right shoulder from the inside. “The time of reckoning is now.”

 

 _Please_ , Thomas thought with his heart pumping blood faster than it ever could perform before.  

 

Nyx stood up after being on standby because of Thomas. She took back her blade and held it above her head while standing behind Thomas. Charon smiled but Nyx frowned. Thomas was actually enjoying the way those two played their parts excellently.

 

Was there any way for Thomas to counter them? He had no other objects in his body to help him save his boyfriend.

 

_I don’t want to die…_

 

Thomas was sure there was supposed to be more to his life than death. He was also sure there was more to Minho’s life than what WCKED had in store.

 

_I don’t want him to die…_

 

Nyx’s arm muscles began to move; her heels twisted on the dirt and rock underneath her. Charon was still nodding to encourage her course of action. With numbing pain ruling his arms, Thomas let his head drop as Nyx was already in the motion of chopping his head off.

 

 _Save him_ …

 

G0002 swung the scythe that was aimed specifically for Thomas’s head as she yelled at him to pay for his sins against humanity. Thomas closed his eyes, but he was wondering why he could feel and see everything that was going on still. It was almost as if he was connected to an outside force that allowed him to see in some sort of third-person point of view.

 

Suddenly all of time stopped. The music of people screaming in the background as the beetle blades skewer their faces. The blood being spilled stopped in its flood. The machine circuits being ripped apart was left frozen with the sparks stuck in mid-air. The scythe never made contact with Thomas’s neck, and the brunet was unaware of what was going on.

 

Spontaneously, everything disappeared and darkness covered the area. A spiralling staircase appeared and Thomas stood up with no physical injuries apparent on his body. He walked up all the stairs for a while, but he was not sure if it was going on for an hour or only five minutes. Time was so subjective to him in that realm.

 

There was something at the middle of the stairs at the top. Thomas reached the destination after climbing a few more sets, and he realized what he saw was actually a giant bird cage — wide steel bars reaching for a greater height than where Thomas was already standing. Feathers were all over the surface of the floor of the cage, and someone was sitting down with their hands on their face and knees on their arms. The brunet opened the cage and entered warily.

 

“Excuse me,” Thomas pardoned himself. “Are you okay?”

 

No response from the other person. Thomas thought maybe he was being too quiet, so he shouted his request. “Are you okay!?”

 

There was no response again. Thomas walked through the field of feathers, moving them along the floor while some flew in the air that was provided by the back of Thomas’s feet. Once he reached the depressed stranger, Thomas created a snowing weather of feathers; hundreds of the white objects falling down gently and ever so slowly.

 

“Hey,” Thomas said.

 

The person moved a bit to reveal their face, and Thomas was honestly surprised of who was behind those hands. They said, “Hello, Thomas.”

 

“But you’re—”

 

“You? Yes,” someone who was a mirror-like image of Thomas was staring back at him. They smiled at him kindly before all the feathers turned black as sludge. “It’s time for _us_ to meet again.”

 

“I’m Stephen Thomas,” Thomas spoke, denying the existence of another entity like him in the room. “I shouldn’t be here. I have to save Minho!”

 

“Yeah, yeah. You can just refer to me as _E.K._ if you want to really differentiate us,” the other male stated, getting up and moving closer to Thomas. “You know I’m the only one who could save your, I mean, our man, right?”

 

“No.”

 

“C’mon, Tommy, lemme at ‘em!” The mirror image of Thomas was acting childish. E.K. looked at Thomas and licked his lips as if he was hungry. His eyes darkened and Thomas was beginning to back away from the sinister vibe that was being permeated into the atmosphere. “Just say my real name, and I’ll do it.”

 

“No,” Thomas rejected wholeheartedly. “Not like this. There has to be some other way.”

 

“Just gotta say it,” The other him uttered in a teasing manner.

 

“Please,” Thomas was shaking his head, not desiring the best option to saving Minho. However, Thomas was already out of his options and needed to be desperate in order to keep his only boyfriend alive. “Save him—”

 

_Earth king…_

 

***

 

A rock wall immediately came up and protected Thomas from the attack from Nyx’s scythe. He chuckled and tried to hide his creeping smiling with his hands. Then he snapped his fingers which in turn caused a giant rock from underneath Nyx’s feet to erupt, throwing her a far distance into the sky.

 

“Like a wolf wearing sheep skin,” Nyx plainly said, unimpressed by the sudden change in Thomas’s attitude. “Charon, now.”

 

“Got it,” said G0001. He put his hands forward and tried to restrict the brunet’s movements with shadow tentacles.

 

Thomas counterattacked by stopping the eerie shadows with earth spines. He only laughed at their efforts, shaking his head. “This is all W.I.C.K.E.D.’s got? Some yin-and-yang wannabe duo?”

 

With an effortless wave, nothing happened. Until Nyx, still free falling back to the ground, got a call from higher ups. “Nyx! Nyx! Kill him now!” A static was interrupting the call as a ringing alarm in the background was almost loud enough to be mistaken being in the area. “He’s making the HQ from Glade city fall into the earth!”

 

“So, you knew where they placed the Glade city force field despite it being hidden,” Nyx was actually praising Thomas. “And you’re attacking from where you are at.”

 

Thomas snickered, smirking at the comment. He did not respond to her, but he gave her a barrage of stones from the ground. Charon attempted to move, but his feet were being sucked up by the dirt.

 

Thomas gave Charon a look that indicated death. “Charon, which has a possible meaning of fierce brightness, and uses darkness as his runner ability,” Thomas was casually throwing his hand around, but he was actually continuing his attack on Nyx to keep her distracted at the same time engulfing Charon’s lower half in earth. “Watch this.”

 

Thomas swirled his finger as an orange glow traced the outline of his right hand. The earth that was taking in Charon’s feet began to transform and a smiley face appeared. Its blank eyes looked into his vivid eyes before it opened its mouth and a spike lashed out from it and penetrated Charon through his right shoulder blade.

 

Charon cried in pain, but he bit his tongue after to hold the sensation down. His body began to dissipate into the surrounding shadows and escaped Thomas’s villainous presence. If only he was aware that Thomas was not only _wicked_ but intelligent. The brunet left a shard inside of Charon’s body, so he could monitor where the male was running away to.

 

As Charon appeared behind a tree for cover, Thomas caused the griever to be lifted in the air with the shard alone. Even if it was a little bit of earth, Thomas was able to transfer an excessive amount of his power to multiply the strength of it. The brunet laughed insanely before he caused the shard to expand within Charon.

 

Playing with his fingers, Thomas watched in delight as the dark-runner’s right arm was being torn off of the flesh and replaced with what looked like a tumor but made out of earth. Charon’s lifeless arm fell to the floor as it spewed blood in a sporadic nature. There was nothing more comforting to Thomas as he watched Charon endeavor the pain. “Vile and sadistic,” Charon coughed out, hoping the blood loss was going to kill him before Thomas could pick him off — piece by piece.

 

Playing according to Thomas’s creative mind, the thing that Thomas left inside of Charon absorbed and controlled the blood flow on the right side to prevent too heavy damage being done to the host. It was only dirt, soil, and rock, but it acted as if it were a living parasite inside of the griever. There was no way Thomas would ever let his prey walk away without suffering first.

 

Frightening was what Charon wanted to describe it as. His powers weakened enough to free Minho from the realm of darkness. It was not his choice to do so, but he needed all his strength and concentration to combat the parasite that was sucking the life out of him.

 

Nyx eventually saw her partner in trouble, so she had no choice but to teleport to his side to aid in his struggle. Nyx was able to walk into a plain of light and get out to where another light source was available. It was the same concept as Charon hiding in shadows to be prevented of being seen.

 

She and Charon were the original grievers and were supposed to be the strongest of all the grievers. In juxtaposition to each other, they were supposed to be complete opposites. She enjoyed her coffee from the blackest blend while Charon enjoyed his as sweet as the marshmallows he puts in them. She preferred a boring brand of cereal that barely had any sugar in it while Charon preferred his bowl to have some sort of sugary brand with strawberries and vanilla-flavored almond milk.

 

Nyx always enjoyed the way Charon lived his life. Thus, she treasured him as the light of her world. To Charon, he envied how much wisdom Nyx carried and always wanted to become better to impress her. Together in their coordinated attacks, they could create a world that would be their enemies Heaven _and_ Hell.

 

So they were strong, but there was someone else that was more menacing and capable of ruling over more than W.I.C.K.E.D. This man they were supposed to be fighting was capable of taking over the _world_.

 

Thomas smeared the blood that dripping down his neck that Nyx’s scythe grazed. He walked over to his sleeping boyfriend, and he caressed his cheek. It was as if he was fighting himself on his face because he wanted to show he was heartbroken but his face wanted to also show a sadistic smile.

 

Slowly closing his free hand, Thomas controlled the rock buried in Charon to transform again. All over the surface of the dirty piece of mixed material appeared more smiley faces. They each looked immediately over at Nyx before it looked like it was laughing at her. “Die.” Thomas murmured.

 

Without warning, the rock that replaced Charon’s right arm began to pulsate and then exploded. Scraps flew in the air — especially the ones that belonged to the griever. Nyx survived but her hearing was taken away by the blast. One of her heels were broken off and bruises could be found all around her body. She froze for a moment as she saw a hand and head rolling away to nearby bushes. Silently, she cried over her fellow griever; not moving from the floor, crushing the rocks with her bare hands. It was like a lake inside of her heart had become a drought; a hole deep within her heart that no tangible object that could pierce her could match.

 

Her beating organ was there, but she felt it die the same time Charon did. Laughter was heard in her head, and it was not the one that Thomas was flaunting around with. No… a laughter of Charon echoing in her head as the griever ran through a meadow in her mind. She may have been the night by name, but she was light to Charon no matter what.

 

Her right hand glowed in a rich, white energy. It built inside of her; the rage and despair swirling and dicing her pitiful heart. All of heaven would be crying as an angel had died. Thoughts raced in her head without having consideration of the red traffic light that was placed there.

 

It was too painful.

 

It was too depressing.

 

It was too heartbreaking.

 

She loved him too much. Shaking in rage, Nyx’s aura was beginning to violently flow in a small radius around her. “Feel Heaven’s judgement.”

 

Thomas sensed something strong about to lash out from the woman. He could count down on his fingers the seconds it took before Nyx unleashed a power that could destroy at least the whole park. Thomas smiled excitedly as if he was awaiting for someone with such formidable power to finally appear.

 

Nyx made a one quick flash-bang within a large radius, blinding those that had their eyes open. Thomas genuinely looked at the glorious light and thought how badly he wanted to _eradicate_ it.

 

“Come, runner,” Nyx gracefully spoke. “Face the wrath of my light.”

 

“With undying pleasure,” Thomas retorted, staring as the blinding light dimmed down and showed Nyx with six angelic wings made out of the sunlight that was beaming out from the once cloudy skies. In her left hand, a scythe was lit in glowing fire of light. It shined almost as brightly as the flash she had earlier.

 

With each flap of Nyx’s wings, feathers of light would continuously fall to the floor and bless the earth. Thomas noticed something altering the ground each time a feather made contact. The fading lighting quickly turned into a shady blob before it took life. It grew a face, but it was still distorted and unable to make any other sounds besides a horrid screech. Thomas was ultimately pleased at the results. “What are these, my dear?”

 

“For you to find out,” Nyx said, holding a stronger attitude than before. “Just know this tactic was off-limits to use because it was deemed too dangerous to use.

 

Behind Nyx as she stayed in flight, a shadow grew and took form of the dead griever Charon. It did not speak like Charon nor did it have any other emotion besides the blank face it already had. No other color was apparent after it took Charon’s shape, but it wrapped its misty body of night around Nyx’s neck. The name of the maneuver Nyx was performing was called, “Heaven’s Final Judgement — No Light Without Darkness.”

 

“Long name,” Thomas sassed, but there was something Thomas had to verify with Nyx.  “They successfully cross-gened you and Charon’s powers and vice versa, huh?”

 

“Smart, earth king,” Nyx was cautiously floating over to Thomas’s position. “Yes.”

 

Thomas took the compliment with the ground beginning to shake. He looked over at Minho to see that Asian was still deep in his sleep, so he did not entirely mind to end the battle before anything too extensive happened. Nyx foresaw a moment of strike from Thomas, so she immediately flew into the sky at a speed too fast for the human eye to catch. The grievers in the area began to retreat as the concrete and the streets were being lifted into the air. Stone and dirt was also being taken from the park, and it all was being sucked into Thomas’s gravitational pull. Chunks of earth were circling Thomas in multiple rings.

 

All of the shadow blobs were torn to bits by the protective rings as it also gave Thomas the ability to levitate. Nyx pointed her scythe down and hundred rays of light came down upon Thomas. Knowing the blast radius by one of those beams would cause at least minor damage to Minho, the brunet had to think of intercepting all of the rays at once.

 

Taking the edges of the park, he forced upon a humongous turtle-shell barrier to absorb the shock while keeping himself and his boyfriend safe. Within the dark confinements as dust and dirt was being shaken off from the hits from Nyx’s attack. There was a strange thought as to why he was trying hard to protect Minho.

 

Thomas had forgotten who the Asian was, but at the same time he knew the male was imperative to Thomas’s well-being. A warmth struck his cold heart, and he grasped the material of his shirt.

 

The earth king was not done burying himself from the world. All runners had to be taken down, but… Minho was a runner. There seemed to be a complication in Thomas’s original plan. A problem seemed to have crawled in and needed to be taken care of. In a bright orange glow, Thomas made a concrete cocoon around Minho and forced it to levitate. Pushing his hand hard, Thomas shot Minho out of the barrier and straight out of the area to ensure the Asian male was far away from the battle.

  
“Let’s give’em a show,” Thomas clapped his hands together, causing the barrier to collapse upon him.


	9. No Matter How Far Apart We Are, Call Out My Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT GUYS THANK YOU ALL FOR READING AND SO ON I LOVE YOU ALL AND BLEEEH I JUST CANNOT ANSDJKASNDJ THANK YOU TO BRYAN WHO STUCK W/ ME ON THIS AND ALSO FLORIS (DID I SPELL THAT RIGHT? DOING THIS FROM MEMORY). I hope you all enjoy the ending of this long ass clusterfuck

Minho woke up with all sorts of gravel next to him. He looked around and saw that he was in the middle of the street, but it was far too empty to be the Glade city he knew. No kids laughing as they ran to catch bubbles, or the police cars parked around to watch over the citizens properly. The trees shook only because the ground was being moved by some force.

 

There were buildings that were torn up, and there were some left almost perfectly untouched. The noir picked himself up and began to wander the ruins of his city. Nightfall had taken place, but he could see in the sky up ahead, not too far from where he was, a light flickering brightly. It was absurd that it was shining brighter than the stars, but he guessed it would be the best guess to explore that section of town first.

 

Minho used the surrounding wind to flow around him, and he took flight into the sky towards the direction of the flickering. As he managed to get on the roof of a hotel building, he was only three blocks away from the light, but he could see something that looked like firefly trying to dodge brown spheres. Heavily confused, Minho casually flew over to the destination to get a closer look.

 

With every meter being past, it was apparent the firefly was somebody with what looked like wings. Minho glanced at what the person was facing, and his face went pale as it was giant mantis-like creature entirely out of the park that Minho last remembered being at. Its eyes were glowing orange as the angelic person shot rays of lights from his or her scythe at it.

 

Only appearing about a block away from the scene, Minho saw the bodies of grievers all around the area. He decided it was a good time to check Glade’s status with runners and grievers. The Glade city report seemed to be under technical difficulties, so he had no way of distinguishing of what was around.

 

Minho remembered a fear hiding in the back of his heart, and a hatred that almost divided himself in his mind. He could guess by the powers that were displayed that the one commanding the earth-like creature was the none other than the earth king himself.

 

There was no way, though. Minho took the living air out of the earth king. 

 

Why would there still be somebody possessing such strong and villainous aura with the stones? 

 

The fact the park was swallowed into the mantis monster was a fact that the powers of the earth king were not simple. It took a lot of strength, endurance, and creativity to become a runner such as that.

 

It was official to Minho that the earth king was in fact not dead, and it was time he really put out the flames in his heart. No more mistakes, for it was the end of the chapter for earth king. Minho’s fury was leveling up until it was a practically flowing out of his body as aura. He gently played the wind as if it were strings on a guitar and then threw it at the earth king. 

 

The immense power was apparent as one arm of the rock entity fell straight down from a clean cut. Nyx looked over at Minho’s direction and smiled as she had something to prove to Thomas. She blinked over to Minho and gave him a tired breath, “I know you’ve been dying to know who the earth king really is.”

 

The head of the earth king’s monster made a crooked turn and observed the two talking. It saw Minho and swiftly began to shoot stone tablets at the two. However, the combined powers of Nyx and Minho created shield strong enough to repel the attack, causing the attack to wither down to the cement floor way down below. Nyx caressed the Asian’s cheek and sweetly whispered, “Thomas  _ is  _ the earth king.”

 

Like the cascading waterfall Minho saw with his boyfriend during their recent anniversary, the truth was sinking its venom deep into his veins. The smiles and laughs he shared with Thomas cracked like a mirror falling on the hard ground. His heart stopped and everything was set into extreme slow motion. Minho and the monster made honest eye contact; giant orange eyes to his puny brown eyes. It was as if the innocent sheep that hung out with the wolf was finally ripped apart by the nasty teeth of the wolf. 

 

Minho never felt betrayal as deep as Thomas’s. The wind silent but his internal pain was screaming as vigorous as it could. The head of the creature crumbled apart and revealed a man standing with a plain baby-blue shirt with khaki skinny-fit pants. The realization was almost too cruel for Minho to accept. The earth king had on the black gasmask and slowly removed it to reveal to Minho that it was, in fact, Thomas behind it. 

 

“Oh god,” Thomas murmured. The cage that his other persona entrapped him in was broken into million of pieces. Thomas knew he never wanted Minho to see the light of the truth because the established fear of losing the Asian was still heavily growing in his heart.

 

“Thomas! Thomas! I swear to god! Thomas!” Minho made a clamor. A sound wave echoed and ripped through a lot of layers of Thomas’s abominable entity. 

 

“Yes?” Thomas gave off a smile that was not inviting. Minho had never seen Thomas look sinister like that since the two were dating, but it was something he could not unseen. The tone was not concerned in any way, nor was it loving.

 

“I’m going to kill you, Thomas!” Minho uttered out in frustration. 

 

Everything was falling into place for the Asian: the police station, Dylan’s last words, the last date of the entries of the experiments. A river flowed into his dam and forced it into murky waters. It made quick work of taking Minho’s soul down and caging him into a underwater hell. He was suffocating but could not drown. It was like being stuck as a character in a story that he could not manipulate the direction of where Thomas and his chapter was going.

 

If Minho could, he would rewrite it so he and Thomas could still be together without having a tragic fate. As the silence of the battlefield was still lingering, the thoughts in Minho’s head kept telling him little stories of false happiness and hope. From wishing he and Thomas were in another universe and were normal people instead of runners, where the lunar eclipse did not always bring uncertainty into the world, and especially a world where Minho and Thomas were only having the morning staring contests as they woke up. 

 

It was all sweet, too much for Minho’s liking. He would rather face the truth that was not sugarcoated head-on and take down his boyfriend. He had enough bullshit at the moment.

 

Thomas was done waiting around, but he did feel himself wanting to get closer to the familiar Asian. In a moment, he felt like he was regaining some sanity. He brought up floating rock pads that led all the way to Minho. “Minho,” Thomas’s voice dropped the darkness in his face, stepping on one pad in an endeavor to close the space between him and the air-runner. “I’m still Thomas.”

 

“No,” Minho interrupted, “you’re the murderous and despicable earth king.”

 

“I’m Thomas,” the brunet was practically croaking, unsure if he was going to reach Minho with each shaky step. “I-I’m your boyfriend.”

 

Minho scoffed, looking away to avoid making eye contact with Thomas’s eyes. “Disgusting.”

 

“Pl-Please com-come to me,” Thomas was beginning to sob as the earth pads behind the brunet crumbled apart. “Minho.”

 

Nyx chuckled, seeing as she had given the earth king a pain that was almost equal to her own. Minho could see that Thomas was only five steps away from him, and there was going to be a proximity between them that Minho did not wish for. He swiped his hand, causing the air to become sharp and cutting off the last steps that Thomas could take to get closer.

 

“Do you hate me?” Thomas held back the jet black heart inside of him from losing another heartstring. 

 

Minho did not answer nor spared him a glance. It was quiet in Thomas’s mind as he ran out of reasons of making Minho stay. He was so scared of having to cut the red string of fate that the two had together, and it was beginning to strangle him in its coils. Thomas had no choice but to get the scissors and let Minho go.

 

“It’s okay if you hate me,” Thomas started off with a heartbroken smile and glassy eyes. “I hate me too.”

 

In a matter of seconds, the bridge that Thomas made to Minho collapsed on its own, and the brunet was falling to the ground that was at least over a hundred feet down. A rush of wind was violently slapping Thomas’s face, and he smiled because he imagined the wind to be Minho controlling it.

 

As Thomas fell, Minho moved his body subconsciously to save the brunet. However, Nyx held him back and restrained him. “He’s going to die, fucking damnit!” Minho kept resisting Nyx’s hands. 

 

“No, he won’t.” Nyx strongly stated. 

 

Thomas kept flying down until he finally hit the floor. Minho’s heart snapped from one half into another half. It kept repeating the agonizing cycle until there was too many halves for Minho to collect. 

 

But she was right. Thomas hit the ground in less than ten seconds. He made an impact as if a meteor hit the city, but Thomas was in the middle of the crater he created unharmed. Minho did not need to get up in Thomas’s personal space to know that the other male was crying so hard but trying to smile.

 

At the cold bottom, Thomas could still see Minho high above underneath the moon that was growing bloody. Thomas held out his hand and tried to reach for his boyfriend hopelessly with the tip of his fingers. No matter how much he wanted to touch Minho’s face, the boyfriend would not inch closer. He laughed at first, then croaked, made a small chuckle, then sobbed. It was an endless process of trying to maintain his sanity because he wanted to laugh it all away. Laugh like the pain did not hurt as much as it did, but Thomas was hurting worse than a hornet stinging his tongue repeatedly while a rope tightly constricted his neck. 

 

Rubbing the dried tears as fresh trails came out, Thomas thought about who he really was as a person, for he was runner yet villain; earth king but Stephen Thomas  _ and  _ Minho’s boyfriend.

 

_ Kill all runners, all grievers, all of W.I.C.K.E.D. _

 

“No.” Thomas stated, knowing the wish was not entirely correct. 

 

Who was Thomas? Who was earth king? Thomas had to chose one or the other as if there was jury behind him, observing and judging his actions. He knew that E.K. had memories of things he did not remember, but it also seemed E.K. was forgetting a few things that Thomas had in his memory. It was almost as if they were two entirely different people stuck in one body. 

 

An idea sprouted in his head, for he knew he was not completely himself. His mind was still divided by itself. The real ‘Thomas’ did not appear yet. Thomas may had been himself before the experiments happened, but there a fine line in his mind that splitted him up.

 

Thomas got on his knees and concentrated on his runner abilities. He was going to make a different path for himself. “I’m Thomas,  _ the  _ earth king.” 

 

Gesturing his hands like a conductor, his arms were covered in orange energy that glowed brightly. Minho and Nyx saw the color from above, but they did nothing to stop the movements. They simply watched. 

 

More and more power was being transferred into the ground below Thomas, and he smiled not sinisterly nor happily. He just smiled because he was content with what he was about to create. A massive earthquake began to shake Glave city, and buildings all around were falling due to the sudden seismic waves. 

 

“I know you can hear me, Minho,” Thomas was talking to the wind, “I’m not running away from myself anymore. What is broken can be reforged.”

 

The blocks and streets began to levitate and move around like snakes on grass. They traversed and mixed with other streets of Glade. Thomas was remaking Glade city into something to his liking, and it seemed like walls were being erected as it also collided with other walls to form what looked like a massive  _ maze _ .

 

“He’s terraforming Glade city,” Nyx quietly murmured.

  
“No. Fucking. Way.” Minho awed at such display of power. 

 

“There were too many Thomas’s in my head, so I decided it was time to make myself whole again,” Thomas happily stated.

 

Suddenly, a red beam came down from the moon above and shot Minho down. As Minho fell straight into the maze, Nyx stared down with disinterest and knew he would be okay. The two runners were bonded by something that not even heaven or hell could pull apart. They would not dare to hurt or even  _ kill  _ each other. All she could do was let herself gracefully fly above as the world below her was changing.

 

Instead of hitting a stone-hard death, Minho nosedived into a lake that gave him a sense of security and peace. Minho knew something about the waters was calming and memorably familiar. Minho’s left arm began to glow in a neon blue, which caused the water he was swimming in to be manipulated by simple gestures. 

 

Now that Minho analyzed where he was at, he was at the place where Thomas took him on their anniversary. He could remember Thomas’s pale body being deprived of clothes, and how badly Minho wanted to touch that body as if it could disappear before his eyes. With a voice that knew it would not be heard, Minho called out, “Thomas, I love you.”

 

Another light came down and bathed Minho in its glory. Spontaneously he was teleported to an unknown area with Nyx by his side. Confusion apparent on his face, Nyx had to explain herself, “I transported you with my powers. Think of it as a rapture.”

 

Minho nodded. “So where are we?”

  
“W.I.C.K.E.D. Official HQ,” Nyx gave him a small smile. “Starting today you will train to be a  _ griever _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, that's all folks. I will begin writing the sequel after I get my fics handled w/ for Thominho week. Please do look out for those~ Thank you all for taking the time to read this incredibly long story, and if you have any ideas of any powers you guys want to see or be used in the sequel, please do comment and let me know! I like making these fics to please the fans even if it is just one reader. Every person voicing their opinon counts and will get an almost instant reply from me~ ENJOY your day beautiful people!


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